Kevin Spacey met with standing ovation at Oxford University lecture on cancel culture

It was actor’s first stage performance since acquittal for sexual assault

Kevin Spacey was given a standing ovation by an audience at the University of Oxford last night (16 October), after he delivered a performance as part of a lecture about “cancel culture”.

It was the first time the House of Cards actor, 64, has performed on stage since the US star was acquitted of sexual assault against four men in a London trial that ended in July 2023.

Spacey delivered a five-minute scene from Timon of Athens, William Shakespeare’s satire of wealth, greed and betrayal. Modern critics have described the work as an exploration of what is now often called “cancel culture”.

The play, written in the early 1600s, is about a rich citizen of the Greek city who lavishes all his wealth on parasitic writers and artists. When he loses his wealth, his former friends abandon him. The excerpt was seemingly performed by Spacey as a way to discuss his own exile from Hollywood in the wake of the sexual assault allegations. Timon of Athens ultimately ends with its protagonist becoming a bitter recluse, having been shunned by the society of Athens.

Spacey’s performance came during a lecture dedicated to the late Sir Roger Scruton, a philosopher who was fired as a government adviser after a New Statesman journalist tweeted a truncated quote from an interview he gave, about Chinese people being “a kind of replica of the next one”.

The magazine later apologised for misquoting Scruton and he was reinstated as an adviser. He died in 2020 aged 75.

Douglas Murray, the conservative columnist who delivered the Oxford lecture and invited Spacey to perform, told The Times: “It’s about what happens when a society drops a person for no reason. It’s something that has been on Kevin’s mind, as it was on Roger Scruton’s mind, so I said I want him to be back on stage in the UK.”

Spacey’s Oxford appearance came days after West End cinema The Prince Charles cancelled its offer to host the premiere of the British film Control, when venue bosses found out that it starred the actor.

Control follows government minister (Lauren Metcalfe), who is having an affair with the Prime Minister (Mark Hampton) and ends up being kidnapped after her self-driving car is hijacked.

Kevin Spacey (Getty Images)

Spacey voices the vengeful villain who has taken control of the car. He does not appear physically in the film, but recorded his part in London last December while awaiting trial.

British director Gene Fallaize previously told Variety: “He is naturally quiet and comes across as quite shy. He seemed fine. I mean, I didn’t know Kevin before all of this so I can’t say what he was like in comparison to what he was like before. But you know, he just seemed like a nice guy.”

He added that he did not have any reservations about casting Spacey. “The only people that know everything are the ones that were in that courtroom and they decided he was not guilty,” Fallaize said.

“These people that are saying – if they’re saying – that we’re whitewashing him or enabling him to come back, what facts have they got to contradict the jury? I don’t regret casting Kevin and I would do it all over again.”

Control will be released in the UK and the US on 15 December.