Following an Oxford lecture on cancel culture, Kevin Spacey was given a standing ovation for performing a speech from Shakespeare and Thomas Middleton’s “Timon of Athens.”
It was Spacey’s first onstage performance since he was acquitted of sexual assault charges earlier this year. Douglas Murray, a columnist for The Telegraph as well as a friend of Spacey’s, led the Oxford lecture. The presentation and performance took place at the historic Sheldonian Theatre. Watch the full performance above.
“In an era of cancellation and defenestration, we sometimes forget that we cannot go on like this and also that we’ve been here before,” Murray said prior to Spacey’s performance, noting that the greatest writers and artists have addressed questions around cancellation “in their own times.”