Brideshead Revisited

After the success of Lady Chatterley’s Lover, De Warme Winkel brings another English literary classic to the stage. Florian Myjer, together with Abke Haring, catapults Brideshead Revisited into the 21st century.

Though this masterpiece enjoyed cult status among queers and conservatives alike in the last century, nowadays this novel seems consigned to obscurity. While this is perhaps the most romantic and Anglophile book that literature has ever yielded.

The secretively autobiographical Brideshead Revisited (1945) by Evelyn Waugh tells the story of Charles Ryder, who, as a young student at Oxford in the early 20th Century, falls under the spell of the aristocratic Flyte family. One sultry summer long, he basks in their opulent life at the heavenly family country estate, where he falls in love with both the son Sebastian and daughter Julia Flyte.

Yet, with the end of summer and the rise of fascism, adulthood also presents itself. No matter how much Charles would like it to, the freedom of those golden August days is not coming back. What had appeared to be the prelude to a radically honest and free-spirited life transpires to be the beginning of a desperate and cynical existence.

Trapped in a bitter worldview himself, for Evelyn Waugh writing this novel was an attempt to recover the happiness of his younger years. Inspired by this soul-searching, De Warm Winkel exploits Brideshead Revisited as a vehicle for an autopsy of love and an unfolding of our (sexual) identity. With live music composed by Rik Elstgeest and the memories and fantasies of Florian and Abke as the beating heart, they finally resuscitate the epic love story Waugh so longed for.

With English surtitles on 13, 14, 15 and 27 June.

Theatre menu

Before Brideshead Revisited, you can eat at De Sloot's premises at restaurant De Sering. Especially for the performance, they will serve a three-course vegan theatre menu. The theatre dinner starts punctually at 6.30pm. Book here.