Wilton's

8th July . 7.30pm .
£12.50 - £25 full price, £10 - £22.50 concessions

Returning to Wiltons after their sell-out Bob Dylan show, Dead Poets Live presents Edward Thomas and Robert Frost, the tragic story of a beautiful friendship, with Rory Kinnear in the role of Edward Thomas and Toby Jones in the role of Robert Frost.

It took Robert Frost – and a summer of walks in Gloucestershire in 1914 – to talk Edward Thomas into writing poems. Until that summer, Thomas had been a Grub Street familiar, living by the pen; Frost was an obscure American with a new theory of versification. The encounter was to prove decisive in the life and work of both men. Championed by Thomas, Frost gained literary recognition, with poems such as ‘Home Burial’, ‘Mending Wall’ and ‘The Road Not Taken’, and went on to win the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry four times. But for Frost, Thomas may never have come into his gift, or the sense of fulfilment that came with his self-discovery as a poet – a period of unforeseen happiness cut short on the Western Front, where Thomas was killed in action on Easter Monday 1917.

Dead Poets Live is 'your chance to see big-name actors bring famous poems to life' (Culture Whisper), all in aid of charity.


Rory Kinnear is an actor who has worked with the Royal Shakespeare Company, National Theatre and has recently enjoyed success in films such as Skyfall and Broken for which he won Best Supporting Actor at the British Independent Film Awards. In 2010 Rory played Angelo in Measure For Measure at the Almeida Theatre and later went on to play Hamlet at the National Theatre. The two roles won him the best actor award in the Evening Standard drama awards. He also achieved recognition as the outrageous Sir Fopling Flutter in The Man of Mode at the National Theatre, winning a Laurence Olivier Award and Ian Charleson Award. Other notable theatre work includes the parts of Iago and Macbeth, the lead in Thomas Middleton's The Revenger's Tragedy, Gorky's Philistines and the role of Mitia in a stage adaptation of the Nikita Mikhalkov film Burnt by the Sun, all for the National Theatre.

Rory has also appeared in numerous television dramas including Loving Miss HattoThe Mystery of Edwin DroodBlack MirrorNational AnthemRichard II, Cranford and, most recently, Years And YearsThe Herd, Rory's debut play, premiered at the Bush Theatre in 2013 and transferred to Steppenwolf Theatre in the USA in 2015.

Toby Jones
  A star of stage and screen, a Golden Globe and Bafta nominee, returning for the fourth time to Dead Poets Live following appearances in The Broken Word, Bob Dylan: The Words of the Songs and Hallowe’en, Toby Jones made his breakthrough as Truman Capote in the biopic Infamous. Film appearances has since included The Mist, W., Frost/Nixon, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy and Dad’s Army. Television credits include Capital, Sherlock and Titanic. As well as the new series of Detectorists, for which he was awarded a BAFTA, recent work includes Michael Haneke’s Happy End, the most recent Jurassic Park and the BBC Two series which he also co-created and co-wrote, Don’t Forget the Driver.

Running time: 1 hour 20 mins, no interval
Your cart  
Check Out Log In