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Music, melodrama and the movies.

Eleanor Bron narrator
Counterpoise ensemble

Richard Strauss (music), Ludwig Uhland (words)
The Castle by the Sea
Jean Hasse (music), Hans Richter (film)
Ghosts Before Breakfast
Edward Rushton The Concoction of a Charlatan
Edgar Allan Poe Shadow
Heiner Goebbels In the Basement
Mauricio Kagel Old / New
Mauricio Kagel MM51 / Nosferatu
Edward Rushton (music), Syl Betulius (film) On the Edge

'Weird and wonderful.' THE INDEPENDENT

The gothic poetry of Poe, read with sly charm by the incomparable actor Eleanor Bron, one of the strangest, most powerful surrealist silent films, and hauntingly evocative live scores are weaved together with imaginative power into an extraordinary and quite unforgettable musical experience.

Among the hypnotic works of music-theatre performed are Richard Strauss' beautiful, rarely heard, Castle by the Sea, for narrator and piano; Jean Hasse's acclaimed new score for the quirky cult film classic Ghosts Before Breakfast; Heiner Goebbels' amazing In the Basement; Edgar Allan Poe's morbid parable, Shadow; and Edward Rushton's outstanding On the Edge, a Swiss melodrama based on the writings of Alpine pioneer Sir Arnold Lunn.

An evocative night of melodrama - not in the modern sense of overheated sentiment but as Mozart would have understood it: a work in which music and speech intertwine to their mutual enrichment – this programme of intriguing masterpieces is not to be missed.

'Unique, mesmerising works of music-theatre that linger in the memory.' EVENING STANDARD

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The veteran British character actor Eleanor Bron began her career appearing with Monty Python's Flying Circus, and found success in television and film with roles in Dr Who, Absolutely Fabulous, Vanity Fair, Alfie, Bedazzled, Women in Love, Turtle Diary, The House of Mirth and Wimbledon. Live performances include Amnesty International's Secret Policeman's Ball benefit shows, the Globe's In Extremis, and the dramatized version of Pedro Almodovar's All About My Mother.

'A performer of burning intensity.' THE INDEPENDENT

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The Counterpoise ensemble comprises some of the most sought-after young instrumentalists in the UK: Alexandra Wood (violin); Deborah Calland (trumpet); Kyle Horch (saxophone) and Helen Reid (piano).

'[The] highly charged Alexandra Wood is a performer of quite extraordinary physical and imaginative dexterity.'
THE TIMES

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Ghosts Before Breakfast (Vormittagsspuk, 1927) is a Dadaist cult classic film: initially a sound film the Nazi attempt to destroy all copies as 'degenerate art' has left only a silent version. With surreal sequences of flying bowler hats settling like a flock of birds in the bushes, a neck tie that refuses to stay tied, pistols multiplying like mammals, teacups magically filling by themselves and stop motion animations that anticipate Monty Python by half a century, the film is perhaps the best of Hans Richter's early short films. Although lighthearted, as Germany had so recently brought about a violent world war and was swiftly headed for another, the imbedded doomful allegory of Ghosts Before Breakfast is not difficult to deduce. Two of the actors in the film are composers Darius Milhaud and Paul Hindemith.

View Hans Richter’s silent classic, Ghosts Before Breakfast

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On the Edge is a cross-genre project bringing together elements of music, theatre and video. Set in the Swiss Jungfrau region, the scenario weaves in the terrible beauty of mountains, the memoirs of Sir Arnold Lunn, the inventor of the slalom, the terrifying booming sounds that herald an avalanche, a light-hearted philosophical discussion of the purpose of sport, and a Swiss folktale.