Following the success of her readings for the T.S. Eliot Festival in 2009, Josephine Hart makes a welcome return to the Donmar to produce and direct a week of poetry featuring a series of special readings with some of the country’s leading actors. She will devote each performance to the works of one or two poets, introducing and setting their poems in the context of their life. “The idea is simple,” Hart says, “an understanding of the life and philosophy of the poet illuminates the poetry and therefore makes the experience of reading or listening to each poem more intense.”