The Ballad of Reading Gaol

8 July - 9 July 2014

“The Ballad of Reading Gaol”

by

Oscar Wilde

Directed and dramatised by Gareth Armstrong.

Performed by Gerard Logan

(Olivier Nominee & The Stage’s “Best Solo Performer” at the 2011 Edinburgh Festival).

Written by Oscar Wilde after his release from Reading Gaol (Wilde had been incarcerated in Reading having been convicted of homosexual offences in 1895, and sentenced to two years’ hard labour), The Ballad of Reading Gaol is a poem which narrates the execution of Charles Thomas Wooldridge, who was convicted of murdering his wife.

The Ballad of Reading Gaol moves from an objective story-telling to Wilde’s juxtaposition of the executed man with himself, with the line “Yet each man kills the thing he loves”. Wilde too was separated from his wife and sons.

Wilde suggested it be published in Reynold’s Magazine, “because it circulates widely among the criminal classes – to which I now belong – for once I will be read by my peers – a new experience for me”.

“Yet each man kills the thing he loves,
By each let this be heard,
Some do it with a bitter look,
Some with a flattering word,
The coward does it with a kiss,
The brave man with a sword!”

Double Bill Offer: £20 tickets for Wilde Without the Boy and The Ballad of Reading Gaol. This will apply automatically at checkout.