Stage Door News
Stage Door News
The Wilde Festival is a new Theatre Production Company founded by Rosemary Doyle, Jennifer Watson and Dorian Hart to explore the world through the lens of Oscar Wilde, therefore celebrating Wit, Beauty, Bilingualism, LTGBQ+ rights and activism, and exploring the effects of the criminal justice system. We are therefore proud for our inaugural production, to present the Toronto premiere of the acclaimed London production INTRODUCING OSCAR WILDE, OR WORK IS THE CURSE OF THE DRINKING CLASS, by Neil Titley. We think Toronto should meet the essence of the man who has so inspired us. NEIL TITLEY stars as Oscar Wilde in this acclaimed One person show that has wowed the world:
INTRODUCING OSCAR WILDE, OR WORK IS THE CURSE OF THE DRINKING CLASS, for three years running, has been a sell-out success at the extremely competitive Edinburgh Festival. It has been performed in over 100 towns across the UK, including such famous theatres as the Kings Head (London), the City Varieties (Leeds) and the Focus Theatre (Dublin). It ran for five seasons in Stratford-on-Avon, England, Most recently, a series of very successful tours in Ireland, Bahrain, Germany, Zimbabwe, Hong Kong, the French Riviera, Holland, Ethiopia, Iceland and 8 states of the USA. Past audience members have included former UK Prime Minister Edward Heath, the Aga Khan, the officers’ wardroom of the Royal Yacht Britannia, and a Somali warlord!
Now it is coming to Toronto, playing at Leslieville’s Red Sandcastle Theatre from January 6th to the 15th 2017.
Neil Titley, was born in Inverness, Scotland; he read English and American Studies at Hull University, before becoming a student actor at the Oxford Playhouse. He played a series of roles in various theatres, including the RSC – his favourite parts being the title role in Camus’ ‘Caligula’ and ‘Ben’ in Pinter’s ‘The Dumb Waiter’. He acted with the Tangent Theatre Company and was director of the Cornish Stage Company. His play on Bernard Shaw, ‘Shaw’s Corner’, was televised and broadcast in over twenty countries; while other writing has included shows on Brendan Behan, Dylan Thomas and Oliver St John Gogarty. He appeared as 'Oscar Wilde' in the Channel 4 TV show 'Indecent Acts'. An audiotape of his performance was released by Laughing Stock Productions. ISBN 1 897774036
But what does this play, INTRODUCING OSCAR WILDE, OR WORK IS THE CURSE OF THE DRINKING CLASS have to offer?
And why is The WILDE FESTIVAL so excited to open their company by bringing this work to Toronto? Perhaps the LONDON EVENING STANDARD’s CHARLES SPENCER put it best when he wrote:
‘OUT-OSCARING OSCAR… Oscar Wilde once remarked that he had put his genius into his life and only his talent into his work. And Neil Titley’s sympathetic one-man show at the Kings Head, Work is the Curse of the Drinking Classes, proves that for once the familiarly flip Wilde aphorism contains more than a grain of truth. Great success and public approval were brutally followed by disgrace, downfall and the kind of weary self-knowledge which suffering seems to bring. Remarkably, Titley manages to touch on all these facets of Wilde. He has based it on the writer’s letters and essays and set in Paris in 1898, two years before the exile’s death. Titley balances Wilde’s almost dutiful humour with an unsentimental portrayal of his suffering in Reading Gaol, his bitter perception of man’s inhumanity to man. He also captures his character’s dignity in despair and the comedy makes the heartbreak of Wilde’s life even more poignant. It is a most moving effect, and ironically one which Wilde rarely achieved in his own work.’
INTRODUCING OSCAR WILDE, OR (WORK IS THE CURSE OF THE DRINKING CLASS) THE WILDE FESTIVAL,
at the Red Sandcastle Theatre, 922 Queen St. East., Toronto www.redsandcastletheatre.com
Performances Begin Jan 6th, 2017 Tickets $18 to $25 Box Office: 416-845-9411 (Media Day Jan 6th 2017)
Performance Schedule: 8PM; Jan 6,7, 11,12,13,14 Matinees 2PM; Jan 7,8, 14,15
2016-10-19
Toronto: Neil Titley's "Introducing Oscar Wilde!" comes Toronto January 6-15, 2017