On first glance, The Final Salomé is a play about Wildean decadence, Edwardian politics, and queerness on trial. On second glance, it is about grief, memory, and the impossibility of telling the truth — especially when the truth is wrapped up in shame. Lily Zhang’s play The Final Salomé, runner-up in the Oxford New Writing Festival and currently running in the T. S. Eliot Theatre, Merton College, is not just a history play — it’s a haunting excavation.
The play traces a surreal, time-jumping reconstruction of the 1918 obscenity trial against Oscar Wilde’s Salomé and the titular actress of the play. In Zhang’s script, fact and fiction blur as lesbianism, war propaganda, celebrity theatre, and state paranoia converge into a single question — why did Robbie Ross, Oscar Wilde’s lover, most loyal friend and literary executor, refuse to defend the play he had once loved?
Peregrine Neger gives a quietly powerful performance as Old Robbie, capturing the weight of memory and fractured loyalty with subtle grace. Nikolas Nargi brings depth and nuance to More Adey, conveying complex layers of affection and conflict. Serafina Hills shines in dual roles as Maud Allan and George Alexander, bringing captivating intensity and emotional depth to the complex intersections of gender and power by showing the sensitivity of men caught up in WW1. In his dual portrayal of Lord Alfred Douglas and the Doctor, Sebastian Cynn explores the play’s themes of secrecy and duality with finesse. Annabelle Higgins impresses with her versatility across multiple parts — Olive Custance, Nurse, and Judge — each distinct and commanding. Ren Antoine’s youthful energy as Young Robbie and other roles adds vital dynamism to the play, while Charlie Lewis and Mia Liu round out the ensemble with textured performances of historical figures. Playwright Lily Zhang also appears in the ensemble, showcasing her versatility on stage.
But this is no sepia-toned biopic. The Final Salomé is structurally daring, spiralling in and out of dream, memory, and courtroom. At one moment, a fascist MP is denouncing the “Cult of the Clitoris”; at another, Wilde’s Salomé is being re-performed in shards, half-remembered through trauma. Director Rowena Sears leans into the disorientation this creates. Through fragmented set pieces and chiaroscuro lighting, she lets the audience feel the mental fracturing at the heart of the play as the ensemble moves with precision through multiple roles and time periods, aided by tight transitions and subtle costume cues.
There are flourishes of dark comedy — a fascist waxing lyrical about “unnatural.
More Adey under hypnotherapy in the 1940s, reliving the betrayal in real time. But the humour never undercuts the play’s emotional core. Zhang’s dialogue is razor-sharp, veering from Wildean wit to psychological realism with startling ease. At times, the ghost of Tom Stoppard — particularly his play The Invention of Love — hovers in the wings. But this play is distinctly its own: younger, angrier, and queerer.
Ultimately, The Final Salomé is about how legacies are shaped — and silenced. Robbie Ross may have tried to preserve Wilde’s literary remains, but in doing so, Zhang suggests, he abandoned something more intimate. The result is a poignant, intelligent, and formally daring work that challenges our notions of loyalty, truth, and how we remember queer lives.
If The Final Salomé asks anything, it is this: what stories do we bury to protect the ones we love — and who pays the price for that silence?
[The Final Salomé, a new play by Lily Zhang, is running at the T. S. Eliot Theatre, Merton College, Thurs 15 – Sun 18 May]