Kevin Spacey received a standing ovation after giving a performance during a lecture about cancel culture at Oxford Iniversity.
In what was the Oscar-winning actor’s first stage appearance since he was acquitted of sexual assault earlier this year, the former House Of Cards star performed a five-minute scene from William Shakespeare’s Timon of Athens.
Spacey's performance was part of a lecture in memory of philosopher Sir Roger Scruton.
Stacey, 64, was introduced at the lecture by conservative writerDouglas Murray, who said that Shakespeare can teach us about cancel culture.
After the passionate performance, the actor was met with a standing ovation and applause that lasted for more than 40 seconds.
Timon of Athens, written in the early 1600s, centres around a wealthy citizen of the Greek city who spends his fortune on opportunistic writers and artists.
When he loses his wealth, they abandon and shun him and he becomes a bitter recluse. Spacey was seemingly addressing his own exile from Hollywood and being “cancelled” following sexual assault allegations against him.
Sir Roger was a philosopher and was sacked as a government adviser after a New Statesman journalist tweeted a quote from an interview he gave, in which he said Chinese people are “a kind of replica of the next one”
Following the firestorm, the magazine later apologised for misquoting Scruton and he was reinstated as an adviser. He died in 2020 aged 75.
The appaearance came days after the Prince Charles Cinema in London pulled back its offer to host the premiere of new Welsh thriller, Control, after discovering the actor had a voice role in the film.
Spacey, who was rushed to hospital earlier this month after reportedly suffering a health scare, was acquitted of sexual assault against four men between 2004 and 2013 in a London trial that ended in July 2023
