Lavinia Greenlaw: A Double Sorrow, Southbank Centre

This dramatised reading of poet Lavinia Greenlaw's new work deals with the oldest story of all: boy meets girl, they fall in love ... and then what? From Shakespeare’s star-crossed lovers, to the romantic twists and turns of a soap opera plot: we will never stop being fascinated by romantic love, sex - and betrayal.

The poet Chaucer knew this only too well when, in the 1380s, he composed Troilus and Criseyde, which re-tells the tragic tale of two lovers from warring factions in a poem many believe to be his finest.

The doomed young lovers also captured Shakespeare’s imagination and were re-cast in his darker adaptation, Troilus and Cressida. 

And now renowned poet Lavinia Greenlaw has followed in the footsteps of these literary giants with her own take on the verse drama that promises to be as compelling as the original.

Greenlaw burst onto the UK poetry scene in the 1990s with her precise, musical poetry that has won a string of awards and garnered widespead praise from critics in the last 25 years.

This new reading is adapted from her new book, A Double Sorrow, billed by her publishers Faber & Faber as a 'pin-point retelling' that is neither a translation nor strictly a version of Chaucer's work, but instead 'creates something new: a sequence of glimpses from the medieval poem that refine the psychological drama of the classical story.'

Writing in seven-line vignettes, Greenlaw has attempted to bring Troilus and Criseyde up to date for a 21st Century audience; remaining true to Chaucer’s original, questing and slyly funny verse. 

We suggest anyone interested in the vagaries of the human heart hotfoots it to this special premiere, directed by James Runcie, where, under the Southbank Centre's roof, Greenlaw summons the indomitable spirit of Chaucer’s lines composed over 650 years ago.