A NEW play coming to the Artrix in Bromsgrove turns the spotlight on cultural icon and author, Quentin Crisp, who was brave enough to live openly as a gay man when homosexual relationships were still illegal.

He was also wise enough to turn his back on domestic chores.

A spokesman said: “Naked Hope depicts the legendary Quentin Crisp at two distinct phases of his extraordinary life.

“Firstly in the late 1960s in his filthy Chelsea flat, when he famously advised, ‘Don’t lose your nerve: after the first four years the dirt won’t get any worse’.

“Here Quentin surveys a lifetime of degradation and rejection. Repeatedly beaten for being flamboyantly gay as early as the 1930s: but also ostracised simply for daring to live life on his own terms.”

Mark Farrelly’s hit solo show comes to Artrix as part of a major UK tour.

Mark Farrelly’s West End credits include Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? opposite Matthew Kelly. He is also the author and performer of a second successful solo play, The Silence of Snow: The Life of Patrick Hamilton.

The second part of Naked Hope play transitions the audience to New York in the 1990s.

The spokesman added: “Here a much older Quentin, finally embraced by society, regales the audience with his sharply-observed, hard-earned philosophy on how to have a lifestyle.”

He said, famously: “Life will be more difficult if you try to become yourself. But avoiding this difficulty renders life meaningless. So discover who you are. And be it. Like mad!”

The spokesman said: “Naked Hope is a glorious, truthful and uplifting celebration of a genuinely unique human being, and of the urgent necessity to be yourself. It opened at the Off-West End St. James Theatre, and has toured the UK ever since.

“It is directed by EastEnders star Linda Marlowe, much acclaimed for her own solo work including Berkoff’s Women.”

The date for the diary is February 13

For further information or tickets visit www.artrix.co.uk or call Box Office on 01527 577330.