Stars including Juliet Stevenson, Harriet Walter and Miranda Richardson are to read aloud Sylvia Plath’s entire Ariel collection of poems as she arranged them.
As part of the London Literature Festival, 40 actresses and poets, including Phyllis Logan, Samantha Bond, Anna Chancellor and Siobhan Redmond will each read a single work from the restored edition of the manuscript found on Plath’s desk after her suicide at the age of 30 in February 1963. Plath predicted that the collection would “make my name”.
The Royal Festival Hall performance on May 26 will be introduced by Plath’s daughter, Frieda Hughes, 53, who wrote a foreword to the restored version.
James Runcie, head of literature at the Southbank Centre which organises the festival, said he wanted to use Plath’s original order and selection. After her death, Ted Hughes, fellow poet and her estranged husband, dropped 12 of the works because he regarded them as “not her best or too angry” and inserted others, said Mr Runcie.
“The Ted Hughes edit has led to her reputation as a tortured woman. But I wanted to reclaim the original edition. It is, curiously, more positive.”
The festival runs from May 20 to June 5. For more details, visit southbankcentre.co.uk
