“If I had my time again, I would pay more regard to those poems of Horace which tell you you will not have your time again. Who knows how many tomorrows the gods will grant us? Now is the time, when you are young, to deck your hair with myrtle, drink the best of the wine, pluck the fruit…”

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CAN’T GET TICKETS? Most performances of The Invention of Love are Sold Out or Limited Availability. Keep checking our website for returns, or join our Returns Queue in person from 6pm each day.

A E Housman is, as he understands it, finally dead. The noted Latin scholar and celebrated poet of A Shropshire Lad is being ferried across the Styx to Hades – but beyond the stygian gloom on the other side of the river he finds, to his surprise, the Oxford University of his youth. Alive with the academic debates that shaped his work and the friendships that shaped his life, this is the Oxford of Ruskin and Pater; a place still marked by the brilliance of a recently departed student called Wilde…

Tom Stoppard returns to Hampstead after the triumphant revivals of Hapgood and Rock ‘n’ Roll. Winner of eight Evening Standard, three Olivier and five Tony Awards, Stoppard’s plays include Leopoldstadt; Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead and Arcadia.

Director Blanche McIntyre directed Botticelli in the Fire in 2019. She recently directed The Merry Wives of Windsor for the RSC and has worked extensively at The Globe; her previous credits include The House of Shades and The Writer (both Almeida) and Tartuffe (National Theatre).

BAFTA, Olivier and Tony award-winner Simon Russell Beale returns to Hampstead following the 2015 sell-out hit Mr Foote’s Other Leg. His theatre credits include The Lehman Trilogy (National Theatre, West End and Broadway), King Lear and Hamlet (National Theatre) and Jumpers (West End and Broadway). His film and television work includes The Death of Stalin, The Hollow Crown, Dunkirk and House of the Dragon.

We are grateful to The Invention of Love Giving Circle who have generously supported this production: Ken & Lin Craig, Melanie J. Johnson, David & Carole Warren.

We also thank The Invention of Love Production Syndicate members for their contributions to the production: Frances Lynn, Mark & Liz Astaire, Jean-Charles & Luce Julien, Jill Hunter Matichak, Ian Kelson, Jocelyn Abbey & Tom Carney, David Dutton & Mave Turner, Neil & Florence Hasson, Claire Tremeer & Robert Reichert.