United Kingdom Archives - Page 5 of 7

Bleak Expectations, The Story So Far, BBC Radio 4 (2011)

May 19, 2014 By Professor Elizabeth Coggeshall

“As Volume Four opens, Pip Bin must enlist the help of his former nemesis, Mr. Gently Benevolent, to fight a new evil that is spreading terror and cake crumbs through the streets of London. Then follows a journey to the Underworld, a gunfight at the All Right I Suppose Corral, Harry Biscuit the dinosaur and his many wives, and an epic battle between good and evil on the plains of Russia.” [ . . . ]

“The fourth series takes its inspiration from sources farther and wider than ever before. Episode 1, “A Tolerable Life De-Happified,” spoofs Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde — with just a hint of the Hannibal Lecter stories as Pip seeks advice from the imprisoned Mr. Benevolent. The next episode, “A Now Spoiled Life Smashed Some More,” enters a Hell not unlike that of Dante’s Inferno, while Episode 3, “A Wretched Life Made Much, Much Sadder”, takes a trip to America to echo the Gunfight at the OK Corral.” –Richard McGinlay, “Bleak Expectations: The Story so Far,” Sci Fi Online (2011)

Soweto Kinch’s The Legend of Mike Smith

April 16, 2014 By Professor Elizabeth Coggeshall

“The Legend of Mike Smith is a dynamic multi-platform project combining Hip Hop, Dance, Jazz and visual art to explore the permutations of the Seven Deadly sins in modern culture. Written by Soweto Kinch, and directed by Jonzi D it follows the travails of Mike Smith, a young artist as he struggles to navigate his way through a normal day whilst being possessed by other worldly desires and vices. [. . .] The work compares a fantastical world of sin in Catholic texts with a licentious often encouraging attitude towards these things in modern society. Rather than the remote Dantean world of the Inferno, vice often becomes virtue when placed in our contemporary market place, the music industry or political system.” —Soweto Kinch, The Legend of Mike Smith, 2013

Dante Group, Fire and Security System (England and Scotland)

March 30, 2013 By Professor Arielle Saiber

Dante Group

Outside On a Billboard, Bodleian Libraries, Oxford, England

June 24, 2012 By Professor Arielle Saiber

Bodleian Libraries, Oxford, England

See also: the 14th century manuscript from North Italy (Genoa?)

Contributed by Dien Ho

Roger Marsh, “Il Cor Tristo” (2008)

October 23, 2011 By Professor Arielle Saiber

“In 1996-98 I was the producer for an audio-book version of Dante’s Divine Comedy, in a new English translation by Benedict Flynn. The reader was Heathcote Williams, and when we came to record Canto 33 of Inferno, I found myself transported by the power and emotion of his reading. It occurred to me that afternoon, that one day I would like to make a musical setting of these verses.
The opportunity to realise this project came last year, when the Hilliard Ensemble invited me to compose something for them, and this was the project I proposed to them. Ugolino’s monologue in Canto 33 is remarkable within the context of the Divine Comedy, in that it is the only time we are given a full account of a personal story: elsewhere we are given snippets or allusions, but Dante does not make time to re-iterate tales he believes we should know already. In this case, the scenario clearly took hold of his imagination: a traitor imprisoned with his entire family, and eventually condemned to starve to death together in their sealed tower. Dante has Ugolino tell his own story simply, calmly and in pathetic detail.
I have begun the drama as Dante first encounters the frozen lake which lies at the bottom of the pit of Hell, cutting a few lines from time to time en route to Ugolino’s story, which I have set complete. My primary concern has been to keep Dante’s words clear at all times, and thus you will find in this ‘contemporary’ music many devices more usually encountered in music of much earlier times.I hope that I have been able to do this without wasting the incredible talents of the Hilliard Ensemble. The challenge for them is less in the notes they have to sing, than in the large number of words which I ask them to enunciate with expression, but also with maximum clarity. And that is my suggestion to you: that you do not close your eyes and let the sound of the music drift over you, but that you accompany Dante on this section of his journey, line by line.” –Roger Marsh, 2008

The Hilliard Ensemble’s recording
Hear a clip here

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