Botticelli in the Fire

“They’re going to kill you. They’re going to worship you, don’t get me wrong. But they are going to kill you”

Playboy Sandro Botticelli has it all: talent, fame, good looks. He also has the ear – and the wife – of Lorenzo de Medici, as well as the Renaissance’s hottest young apprentice, Leonardo.

But whilst at work on his breakthrough commission, ‘The Birth of Venus’, Botticelli’s devotion to pleasure and beauty is put to the ultimate test. As plague sweeps through the city, the charismatic friar Girolamo Savonarola starts to stoke the fires of dissent against the liberal elite. Botticelli finds the life he knows breaking terrifyingly apart, forcing him to choose between love and survival.

Jordan Tannahill’s hot-blooded queering of Renaissance Italy questions how much of ourselves we are willing to sacrifice when society comes off the rails.

Botticelli in the Fire makes its European premiere at Hampstead Theatre. Tannahill’s other plays include Sunday in Sodom and Declarations.

Blanche McIntyre makes her highly anticipated Hampstead debut following Tartuffe (National Theatre), The Winter’s Tale (Shakespeare’s Globe) and The Writer (Almeida).

Award-winning actor and performance artist Dickie Beau (Bohemian Rhapsody and Re-Member Me) stars as Sandro Botticelli. He is joined by Hiran Abeysekera, Stefan Adegbola, Adetomiwa Edun, Louise Gold, Sirine Saba & Howard Ward.