Bloody Poetry

Please Note: This production is not suitable for small children.

Tickets £10; students £6

Bloody Poetry explores the relationship between the poets Byron and Shelley and their wives and lovers. We jump from Switzerland to Italy by way of London, Bath and Dover Beach, from 1816 to 1818 to 1822 – the year that Shelley drowned, mourned by those closest to him – among them the now Lord Byron and his widow, the author of Frankenstein, Mary Shelley. It’s an exciting mix of Romanticism and radicalism, leavened with a fair dose of humour too.

Howard Brenton is one of the UK’s most respected dramatists. His acclaimed plays include The Romans In Britain, Bloody Poetry, Weapons of Happiness, Pravda with David Hare and, more recently, In Extremis, Anne Boleyn and Doctor Scroggy’s War for Shakespeare’s Globe, Paul and Never So Good for the National Theatre, and 55 Days, The Arrest of Ai Weiwei, Drawing the Line and Lawrence After Arabia for Hampstead Theatre. He also wrote fourteen episodes of BBC spy drama Spooks.