Eloquent Protest IIII – Reading Between the Lines
Join us - Remembrance Sunday
8th November, 2009 2pm

Hosted by one of this countries finest orators and anti war campaigners Tony Benn and acclaimed actress and singer Janie Dee, Eloquent Protest is a powerful piece of theatre fusing music, poetry and drama.

A host of acclaimed artists come together on Remembrance Sunday to perform poetry, text, and song in an artist’s response to the price of war, which honours the fallen and counts the human cost of their sacrifice.

“...as a veteran this is one of the most moving events I have been to and hope it grows each year so that in 2010 it can be seen at the Albert Hall...” - Audience Member

From small beginnings in 2006 to a sell out audience in the main space at the Trafalgar Studios in 2008 , Eloquent Protest has quickly become one of the most important and moving events in London’s theatrical calendar, for both audience and performer alike. The strength and uniqueness of this event is its simplicity and passion for people to come together and quietly ask that the voice of peace be listened too.

Each year, Janie Dee, Peter Straker, Johnnie Fiori, Roy Bailey, David Harsent, Sam Ellis, Loveday Littman, Julian Littman and Fiona MacDonald are joined by special guests. In 2008, Sally Burgess, Rosemary Ashe, Warren Wills, Neal Thornton, Lemn Sissay, Charlie Dore, Rupert Wickham, Matilda Whickham and John Guerrasio, Charlotte Forrest, Will Strange, Ben Mellor, Leslie Frobes, Nasrin Parvaz, Julie Nicholson, Philip Desmeules, Two’s Company, Marlene Sidaway, Stella Duffy, Manchester Lesbian and Gay Choir all joined this quiet revolution.

I had had reservation of being involved thinking we would be
preaching to the converted, but there on stage at the end I realised how
powerful the effect of gathering together in large numbers is in amplifying
the energy of our intention way beyond that possible by a group of disparate individuals. So I'm converted to the project and hope that you'll go from strength to strength."
Neal Thornton, composer and musician

 

REVIEW
ELOQUENT PROTEST III
Paper Poppies and Real Tears
5 stars

Eloquent Protest III is the third annual event of a large group of diverse artists protesting against war with poetry, performance and music. Held in the Trafalgar Studios for the third time on Remembrance Sunday and for the benefit of the international medical agency, Medecins Sans Frontieres, it is hosted by former MP and veteran campaigner Tony Benn with dignity and brevity.


The Trafalgar Studios' stage is scaled down by plain black curtains, and the black floor simply decorated with scarlet paper poppy leaves, giving the studio an intimate feel of a small fringe production, rather than of its West End glitz.

If anyone had said an event about world wars would be entertaining, and in fact laugh-out-loud funny at times, you might find it hard to believe. But it isn't as serious an event as you might think, with humour - as well as heartbreaking stories of everyday life during the Blitz, including one so sad it doesn't bear repeating.
 
 Probably the two most famous British poets to write about the First World War, Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon, were quoted, including Owen's famous and graphic poem on the first world war published in 1920, "Dulce et Decorum Est" ("it is sweet and right to die for one's country"). Thisearly poetry was contrasted with later writers like Joseph Heller, whose famous 1961 novel "Catch 22" was quoted to highlight the insanity of war.
 
Live music was a major part of the show, with the Manchester Lesbian & Gay Chorus doing a soulful version of "Over the Rainbow", a gospel version of Lennon's "Imagine", and, with singer Julian Littman, a cover of Costello's version of "(What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love and Understanding?"
 
Actors wearing authentic army uniforms, complete with Sam Browne belts but minus replica weapons, performed vivid diary extracts written by the real-life soldiers used as "cannon fodder". The letters home were an articulate and horrifying record of how war strips soldiers of humanity, and of how quickly the death of their fellow soldiers stopped distressing them, and instead was simply accepted as part of their grisly new life.

 Some of the multi-national aspects of the show, such as poet Adrian Mitchell's poem "To Whom It May Concern (Tell Me Lies about Vietnam)", may have meant a little less to a British audience than the piece on the Falklands War, but still spoke about the universality of loss.

This is an event for all those of us, myself included, born in the late 20th century onwards, who might pin a poppy on every November in no more than a polite gesture of good citizenship. The event could so easily have been melodramatic and depressing, but instead was uplifting and positive.

It provoked not the easy emotion of show business, but real tears of real loss.
 

See Eloquent Protest III Here...

Eloquent Protest IIII