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The
Nottingham Captain (1962)
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| 'A
Moral for Narrator, Voices and Orchestra' |
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| SYNOPSIS |
| Speeches
by Byron, Castlereagh, and Jeremy Bentham set a scene of industrial
unrest and threatening rebellion in the early nineteenth century.
The action concerns the government's employment of OLIVER, an agent
provocateur, to incite a pathetically ill-organised but potentially
effective uprising. Three leaders, including the so-called Nottingham
Captain, Jeremiah Brandreth, are hanged for treason.
Two version of this work - one in the jazz idiom (music composed
by Dave Lee) and one in the classical idiom (music composed by the
late Wilfred Josephs) - were performed at the festivals in a double-bill
with Stravinsky's 'The Soldier's Tale', directed by Colin Graham.
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| EXCERPT |
| "You
call these men a mob, desperate, dangerous and ignorant; and seem
to think that the only way to quiet them is to lop off a few of their
superfluous heads. But even a mob may be better reduced to reason
by a mixture of conciliation and firmness than by additional irritation
and redoubled penalties. Are we aware of our obligations to a mob?
It is the mob that labour in your fields and serve in your houses,
that man your navy, and recruit your army, that have enabled you to
defy all the world, and can also defy you when neglect and calamity
have driven them to despair.." |
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| NOTE |
| A
documentary prepared at short notice - because the commissioned writer
failed to produce a script - for the Centre Fortytwo Festivals in
1962. Opened at the first festival in Wellingborough on 11 September. |
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