Albion: CLOSING TIME
Three years. 80 workshops. One thousand speeches. One pub.
As Our Public House takes its final bow, so too does Albion; our long exploration of who we are as a country, and who we might yet become.
In this closing episode, Josephine reflects on the whole journey: from a tent in a field at Latitude Festival in 2019 to stages across England, from the first hesitant speeches in community halls and prison workshops to songs performed live every night on stage by a cast who made those words their own.
She's joined by composer Jonathan Walton, who talks about the extraordinary challenge of finding music inside real people's words and what it means to turn a speech written in a working men's club or a prison into a song that stops an audience in its tracks.
And together with several of the speech-makers and audiences, they ask: what does it mean to have been heard? What have we learned about the country we live in? And what happens next?
Find out more on the Dash Arts website: dasharts.org.uk/our-public-house
Our intro music is Fakiiritanssi by Marouf Majidi. You'll also hear extracts of I Dream Of A Bin and Woman Like Me by Jonathan Walton, arranged by Yaniv Fridel.
Our Public House was written by Barney Norris. Created and directed by Josephine Burton.
How do you create an epic for the modern world?
This is the start of our Songs of Solidarity mini-series; Josephine Burton and Maria Aberg take us behind the scenes as they discuss the journey of the last 18 months—from researching ancient epic traditions with academics to interviewing those with lived experiences of migration. Join us for a conversation about the art of "future-making," resisting traditional singular narratives, and the exciting, messy process of creating something new.
Songs of Solidarity, is a PROJEKT UTOPIA and Dash Arts co-production. We’re currently in the research and development stage co-produced with the Schwarzman Centre for the Humanities, in partnership with the Archive of Performances of Greek and Roman Drama, School of Advanced Studies, Roundhouse London, Asylum Welcome and Unbound Philanthropy. We are particularly grateful to Fiona Macintosh for her support and encouragement throughout.