Kevin Spacey receives standing ovation for first stage performance since trial
Kevin Spacey was met with a standing ovation last night (October 16) as he returned to the stage for the first time since being cleared of sexual assault charges.Spacey performed a brief scene from the Shakespeare play Timon Of Athens at a theatre in Oxford, during a lecture held in memory of the late conservative philosopher Roger Scruton.Evidently, the extract had been chosen for a reason. Douglas Murray, the conservative columnist who delivered the lecture and invited Spacey to perform in Oxford and delivered the lecture, told the Times that Timon of Athens was about what “happens when a society drops a person for no reason”.Views of Scruton’s legacy remain divisive, and while his work was admired by conservatives, he has been accused of fuelling modern anti-immigrant sentiment.In July, Spacey was acquitted of all nine charges he was facing, including seven counts of sexual assault, one count of causing a person to engage in sexual activity without consent, and one count of causing a person to engage in penetrative sexual activity.He was accused of sexual offences against four men, alleged to have taken place between 2001 and 2013.