Mark Bold

There are few subjects that Colin Wilson does not feel compelled to write a book about. His output over the last fifty years, since the momentous release of his existentialist handbook The Outsider, has been over 100 volumes on crime, the occult, science fiction and fantasy, the paranormal, pop psychology and just about any cranky subject that approaches his radar. What marks these books out is that they are usually argued from Wilson’s New Existentialist standpoint as he manages to shoehorn in his obsessive concepts of optimism and heightened consciousness. Yesterday he was in Stratford to talk about his next book, this time taking on Shakespearean scholarship. Just how he’s going to fuse his “peak experience” philosophy with the work of the “second-rate” Bard remains to be seen.

When I arrive at the venue (the Shakespeare Hotel), there is an elderly lady standing confused near a display of just a fraction of Wilson’s output in the foyer. “Is he going to give the talk here? Are you giving a talk?” she asks me. “No. Shall we ask at reception where Mr Wilson is giving his talk?” Eventually, we find a small group of people seated in the ballroom. At the front, a figure in the shadow of blinding projector light, reminiscent of a silhouetted witness on TV doing their best to remain anonymous. Wilson is already holding forth on the subject of Shakespeare. “Personally, I am convinced that he was not homosexual.” It’s a opening gambit familiar to anyone who has tried to get through Wilson’s comical autobiography Dreaming to Some Purpose. In the book, any new acquaintance of Wilson is examined for their likelihood to enjoy an alternative lifestyle. “I suspected he was homosexual” is probably the most repeated phrase in the book. Even during the course of his talk, as each new character is introduced, we are given this information up front, no matter its relevance to the subject – “Probably bisexual”, “A homosexual”.

Having swiftly cleared up the subject of Shakespeare’s sexuality, Wilson then seems to want to take us on the same journey that Michael Wood did in his Searching for Shakespeare. He leaves Stratford and goes to teach in Lancashire, then returns to Stratford before going to London. Unlike Wood, however, Wilson has no time for facts, and is immediately indulging us with his opinions and speculation, and rapidly turns the story into a confused mass of comically incorrect dates (the Armada in 1888) and hyperbole (”erm, the Catholics of the time were treated like the Jews in Nazi Germany”). Where Wilson is going with all these ideas is anyone’s guess. But then he arrives at the subject of the dedication of the Sonnets, and it seems this is where the rest of the talk is going to stay. Quite what he’s trying to prove, however, remains elusive.

“Could you put the slide up, my love,” he says to his wife Joy, who is sitting patiently at a table beside the silhouette of the self-declared genius, in command of a laptop. She hesitantly finds the right key, and a picture arrives on the blazing screen. The figure is identified – “a homosexual” – and we’re off trying to find out just who Mr W.H. is. A lot of time is spent trawling through records of potential W.H.’s until I have no idea just what he is talking about. “I could read you what I have written on this,” he keeps threatening, referring to a manuscript he occasionally picks up, although quite how this would clarify the situation is not clear. Instead, he quotes from sonnets 33 and 34, and in a breathtaking display of utter speculation, assures us that Shakespeare was madly in love with a woman called Luce, but could only sleep with her if he first slept with a man, and this sexual act happened before noon. It seems we’re being given a masterclass in what Wilson does best, taking a few ideas and turning them into a grand theory, dropping as many names as possible along the way.

Cue Joy, and another slide appears on the blinding white background – this time a painted miniature of a bearded Elizabethan gent. It could be Edmund Blackadder, but Wilson identifies him for us – “not a homosexual. A striking resemblance to the picture of Shakespeare in Holy Trinity.” Well, not really; in fact the beard is about where the similarity ends. But Wilson is convinced. Detailing how he came under the influence of a physicist crank called Rod, who has apparently amassed irrefutable evidence, we’re told that Shakespeare must have caught a venereal disease during his pre-noon bi/curious incident, and this is why he had to leave London and return to Stratford. In fact, riddled with a complicated pox, the disfigured and fat, ugly Shakespeare was unable to act anymore and started churning out his worst work. “I mean, King Lear, it’s shit. It’s just shit,” is his stark conclusion.

“That’s enough. I’ve got to catch the bus,” and the talk comes to a shocking end. All the loose ends that Wilson has teased out of his subject must remain so. “Questions?” People in the audience seem too confused to make an attempt at criticism. Outside, by the display of books, there is a humourless handing over of money for some self-published titles and Wilson hurriedly signing. The whole event has been a display of just how much of an outsider Wilson really is. While the book world is now filled with experts on all subjects adding to a pop science dialogue that can be dipped into to help steer a route through the complications of modernity, here’s Colin Wilson persisting with his prolific output of ideas and subjects that really belong to the far reaches of the internet.