Actor, director, playwright and poet Gerda Stevenson, colleague actor Crawford Logan (BBC Radio Four’s Paul Temple) and Gaelic poet Aonghas Macneacail explore less familiar responses to the First World War in a one night only performance at the Scottish Storytelling Centre Saturday 19 July 7:00 – 9:00pm.
The performance includes a wide range of material from the period including poetry, excerpts from letters and journals of soldiers, nurses and civilians, memoirs, soldiers trench journals (newspapers published at the front) and conscientious objectors tribunal testimonies and secret prison papers.
Gerda Stevenson will also share a handful of her own anti-war poetry and Aonghas Macneacail will offer up a selection of Gaelic poetry from and about the war years. Glasgow University History Research and poet Jamie Reid Baxter will join Stevenson and Macneacail in reading selected Scots poetry; and Glasgow Caledonian Celtic and Gaelic lecturer Michel Byrne supports with songs, including a rendition of the haunting “Black is the Sun” by Stevie Palmer.
Brian Larkin, Coordinator of the Edinburgh Peace and Justice Centre said, “We are immensely pleased to be able to bring Gerda Stevenson and Aonghas Macneacail to Edinburgh’s Scottish Storytelling Centre in this unique performance which sets the lesser known stories of courageous conscientious objectors’ courageous refusal to kill and Scottish women’s and Socialists’ arduous opposition to the war in the larger context of the war. The stories of those who opposed the horrific bloodbath at great personal cost is a glimmer of light in that immensely dark time.”
The event in support of the Edinburgh Peace and Justice Centre marks the second in a series of events designed to raise awareness of the campaign for a conscientious objectors memorial in Edinburgh, which was initiated by the Edinburgh Peace and Justice Centre and Fellowship of Reconciliation Scotland at the International Conscientious Objectors Day demonstration on the Mound in May.
The performance is to take place in the Storytelling Centre’s intimate Netherbow Theatre and is set against a backdrop of images from the war.
Tickets are £7 / £5 concessions from the Storytelling Centre. Book your Tickets here.
https://peaceandjustice.org.uk/
