Quentin Crisp was one of the most memorable public figures of the twentieth century. Flamboyantly gay as early as the 1930s, he spent decades being beaten up on the streets of London, but stayed resolute to his determination to be himself. After achieving fame when portrayed by John Hurt in The Naked Civil Servant, Quentin moved to America and became an international treasure.

Naked Hope depicts Quentin at two distinct phases of his extraordinary life: alone in his Chelsea flat in the 1960s, stoically certain that life and love have passed him by (“I’ve come to the end of my personality”) and thirty years later, giving a sold-out performance of his one man show An Evening with Quentin Crisp in New York. Packed with witty gems on everything from cleaning (“Don’t bother…after the first four years the dirt won’t get any worse”) to marriage (“Is there life after marriage? The answer is no”), Naked Hope is a glorious, uplifting celebration of the urgent necessity to be your true self.

After an extensive UK tour, the production was most recently performed at the Arts Theatre, West End, and New York.