"The Reformation. Spies. Intrigue. The Armada at the door. Brutal torture of those perceived to be enemies of the state at the behest of Queen Elizabeth I.

One in three Jesuit priests are arrested, tortured and executed in front of baying mobs at Tyburn Tree. Paranoia grips the land. Thought crimes are brutally punished.

Into this dangerous, tense world steps young radical genius Robert Southwell. The most celebrated poet of his age, he was the favourite of his cousin, Shakespeare, whose plays are influenced by his work.

But outside the world of literary studies and academia, he is now largely forgotten. Why? Southwell was both a poet of genius and the most subversive of things one could be at the time: a Jesuit priest.

The interrogation of Southwell by Topcliffe is the lens through which Moore examines the ideas and wider impact of the Reformation, whose cultural and political effects still shape our world today."

- South London Post

"Moore’s subject is Robert Southwell, the Elizabethan poet who was also a Jesuit priest, and the interrogation that puts him in a room with Sir Richard Topcliffe, the man Elizabeth I relied on to extract confessions. The England around them is one of spies, informers and an invasion scare, with public executions at Tyburn: one Jesuit priest in three was arrested, tortured and put to death, and holding the wrong belief was punishment enough in itself.

Southwell was the most widely read poet of his generation and a cousin of Shakespeare, whose plays carry his influence, yet outside university English departments he is now barely known. Moore uses the interrogation as a way into the Reformation and what it left behind, from censorship and religious bigotry to xenophobia and the price an artist pays under a watchful state.

The play is a three-hander. Robin Kingsland plays Sir Richard Topcliffe, Danny Solomon plays Robert Southwell and Alex Townson plays Sir Oliver...

With contemporary resonances including censorship, religious bigotry, cancel culture, xenophobia and the cost of being an artist at a time of state oppression, Shakespeare’s Cousin is very much a play for today."

- bestoftheatre.co.uk

to coincide with theatre production at the White Bear Theatre.

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