27 July 2024

The Oscar Wilde World of Gossip by Neil Titley: 10th October

You have probably heard of Oscar Wilde! And his fame for the very funny-one liners and as THE best gossip of course. We have an evening devoted to his best lines and about him.

Presented by Neil Titley who wrote The Oscar Wilde World of Gossip.

His book is a hilarious collection of comic pen-portraits of Wilde's 300 friends and enemies, linked by brief notes on his classic life story. They include an international cast of theatricals, revolutionaries, barristers, prostitutes, American frontiersmen, politicians, mystics, writers, soldiers, pornographers, diplomats, adventurers and confidence tricksters. Simultaneously a 'dip-in' reference book and a continuous narrative, it is an exuberant compendium of malicious rumour, salacious detail and back stabbing one-liners. It is also the funniest book ever written about the Age of Wilde.

Please join him on Thursday 10th October at 7.30pm (doors open at 7pm for the best seats)

Tickets are £12 in the Library, by phone (020 7431 1266) and on line CLICK HERE

Neil Titley is well known to many of our regular attenders as an excellent actor and presenter and tonight he regales us with his book on Oscar's gossip.

Born in Inverness, Scotland, Neil Titley is an actor and writer who has spent his theatrical life concentrating on solo shows. Over a period of forty years, his performance as Wilde in his play ‘Work is the Curse of the Drinking Classes’ was a critical and popular success across five continents.

His play on GBS, Shaw’s Corner, has been televised in over twenty countries.

A revival of his play ‘Brendan Behan’s Teapot’ was seen recently at the Keats Grove Library. He has written seven volumes of memoirs and journals about his peripatetic acting life under the generic title ‘Cider with Bosie’, and he is an Honorary Patron of the Oscar Wilde Society, UK.

The library sold hundreds of copies of his book  ‘Under Ken Wood’ about the history of the Magdala pub and the quirks and personalities of Hampstead in general. Neil donated all the profits to the Library.

The subject of his latest talk is his book ‘The Oscar Wilde World of Gossip’. This has now been published in the USA. Some excerpts have featured in the weekly paper, the Camden New Journal, in his occasional column ‘Camden Victorians’.

He has lived in the vicinity of South End Green for the last fifty years and is a long term supporter of the Library

This event is supported by