if it be sin
Will Tosh, writer and narrator
Harry Waller, actor and singer
Joseph Atkins, composer and pianist
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If It Be Sin is presented as part of the 2026 Queerscore Festival.
“If it be sin to love a lovely lad,
O then sin I…”
We’re in London, in autumn 1594. It’s William Shakespeare’s town, of course – Romeo and Juliet and A Midsummer Night’s Dream will soon be seen on stage. Enter poet Richard Barnfield, a twenty-year-old university graduate who has spent the summer consuming all the louche and homoerotic literature he can find. He’s ready to try something that Elizabethan England has never seen before – passionate, explosive poems that refuse to apologise for same-sex desire.
Four centuries later, prepare to meet Barnfield’s astonishing queer verse in an entirely new form. Actor-musician Harry Waller will bring England’s first queer poet laureate to life in new musical settings written and accompanied by acclaimed composer-pianist Joseph Atkins. Our guide through Barnfield’s world is Will Tosh, author of the 2025 Theatre Book of the Year Straight Acting: The Many Queer Lives of William Shakespeare.
If It Be Sin reveals Barnfield’s dazzling rise, instant notoriety, and sudden fall – as well as his expunging from the canon by homophobic critics. It’s a celebration in song of a rediscovered queer voice, who speaks urgently to us from the golden age of Shakespeare.
‘[Will Tosh is] Fluent and witty’ The Guardian
‘Joseph Atkins, a superb and sensitive pianist.’ New York Times