Rabble theatre show moves from Reading Gaol
The prison formally closed in January 2014 and was bought by the Foundation for £7m last year.Foundation founder Channing Bi said in October he hoped to turn the site into a hotel, museum and art gallery.Mr Davies, who has previously campaigned for the jail to be saved for artistic purposes, said the change of venue for the show was "frustrating"."But you just get to a point where the challenges and the costs that we would have to pass onto our audience are so outrageous that it's just quite a simple straightforward decision," he said,"We can't justify this for a one day event."If we were there for longer it would be different, but not this time."He added that the new venue, St Laurence's Church, was "amazing"."[It] was founded in 1121 and we're doing a play about William the Conqueror, so the history is amazing there," he said.
Mr Bi said previously his plans for the site did not include building flats, and a portrait by celebrated street artist Banksy, that appeared on the prison wall in 2021, would "of course" stay.In January, an augmented-reality exhibition allowed members of the public to view artwork hung on the walls via a smartphone app, without entering the building.Oscar Wilde spent two years at the prison after being convicted in 1895 of gross indecency - effectively for being gay.He spent the last three years of his life in exile in France, where he composed his last work, The Ballad of Reading Gaol, describing an execution at the prison.
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