by Georg Buchner
Freely adapted for television by Stuart Griffiths and Alan Clarke
with Norman Rodway as Danton, Ian Richardson as Robespierre

Danton's Death is arguably the most dramatic and penetrating study of revolution ever written. Georg Buchner who died aged only 23 in 1837, and who is a major influence behind much of the drama of the 20th century, paints a rich canvas of the French Revolution. It covers the debates at the National Assembly, the reeking streets of Paris, the salons and the brothels, the warring political factions, the secret arrests, and the grim scenes of execution. Buchner concentrates on that moment in 1794 when the Reign of Terror, already well established, spills over into a total blood-bath. The play, both highly imaginative and closely documentary, shows how the great hero of the early phase of the Revolution, Danton, sickened by the excesses of the guillotine, which he helped to create, wants to call a halt. But Robespierre and Saint-Just, the leaders of the extremists, with a ferocious puritanical zeal, spur on 'the wild horses of the Revolution.'