James Murphy

Poets James Murphy

Forget the tired movie clichés - 'Poets' is a scandalous new stage play, the first ever theatrical drama to lay bare the whole infamous summer of 1819 when Byron, Shelley, Mary Shelley, Trelawney and the Pisan Circle passionately shared lovers, lifestyles, ideals and domestic arrangements - to devastating effect for all of them. At once wholly reliable and schizophrenically treacherous with the known facts, 'Poets' inflammatory plot incendiarises the tinder-dry details of history. Alternating moments of acerbic comedy with bleak nihilism, 'Poets' reveals Shelley not only attacking the idea of religion but also confronting a sinister Abbess in an Italian priory; he also contributes to the eventual death of his friend, Lord Byron. Similarly, Mary Shelley, in life highly attracted to, and suspicious of, Byron, goes one step further in 'Poets' and confronts him in a romantically and erotically charged encounter. As the play hurtles to its tragic finale, 'Poets' gives new voice to eternal questions; is idealism a sickness or a cure? Is real love compatible with sex and romance? Can humanism and religion ever co-exist? Is God an illusory tyrant or a real redeemer? How much, if anything, should we sacrifice in the pursuit of truth in human relationships? 'Poets' is, then, not so much a play about Romanticism as a dramatic evocation of it, and in its flamboyant celebration of larger-than-life characters, resoundingly proves that myth remains a vital literary means of moving us and revealing our deeper truths. Poets is also - shamelessly, flamboyantly and tragicomically - one hell of a story.