Last year some of you may remember I sponsored a CD of the wonderful war poems of Rupert Brooke, read by Andrew Motion and many others, which had touched and inspired me as a young writer. (See my earlier Rupert Brooke post).
The team behind this, The Useful Donkey Theatre Company, is headed by one of the UK’s most promising young poets, Antony Dunn. A few years ago Antony won Oxford’s highly prestigious Newdigate Prize for Verse – a prize which many years ago was won by my hero Oscar Wilde. (Antony has just had his latest collection of poems, Bugs, published by Carcarnet – do buy it, it is a gem!)
This same theatre company has now produced a one-man play, written by Mark Payton, entitled Rupert Brooke and it is about to go on tour – the dates and venues are below.
The play is the story of the Brooke beyond the myth of a young, beautiful, fallen warrior. It is the story of a far more complex and radical man. Following the legendary ‘war’ poet from his time at Cambridge to his death in the Aegean Sea, Rupert Brooke reveals a man with a tumultuous personal life, a man not afraid to shock his audience, and a man vulnerably reaching to be ‘forever England’.
Saturday 26th September, 7.45pm
Macready Theatre, Rugby
01954 210 176 (Rupert Brooke Society)
01788 534 970 (Rugby Tourist Info – £1.50 booking fee)
Friday 2nd October, 8.00pm
The Cut, Halesworth, Suffolk
www.newcut.org
Box Office: 0845 673 2123
Monday 5th October, 7.30pm
Mumford Theatre, Cambridge
www.anglia.ac.uk/mumfordtheatre
Box Office: 0845 196 2320
Sunday 25th October, 7.45pm
Gulbenkian Theatre, Canterbury
www.kent.ac.uk/gulbenkian
Box Office: 01227 769 075
Thursday 29th October, 7.00pm
Friday 30th October, 7.00pm
The Carriageworks, Leeds
www.carriageworkstheatre.org.uk
Box Office: 0113 224 3801
Sunday 8th November, 3.00pm & 7.00pm
Monday 9th November, 2.30pm & 7.30pm
York Theatre Royal
www.yorktheatreroyal.co.uk
Box Office: 01904 623 568
Wednesday 11th November, 7.45pm
Wilde Theatre, South Hill Park, Bracknell
www.southhillpark.org.uk
Box Office: 01344 484 123