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Front Row: Vera Lynn remembered, guitarist Sean Shibe, PlacePrints audio plays reviewed, Poetry from Alison Brackenbury

18/06/2020

Vera Lynn remembered, guitarist Sean Shibe, PlacePrints audio plays reviewed, Poetry from Alison Brackenbury

BBC Radio 4 - Front Row, Vera Lynn remembered, guitarist Sean Shibe, PlacePrints audio plays reviewed, Poetry from Alison Brackenbury

Tributes to Dame Vera Lynn, guitarist Sean Shibe and PlacePrints audio plays reviewed.

Neil Brand pays tribute to Dame Vera Lynn, guitarist Sean Shibe plays Bach on the guitar, PlacePrints audio plays reviewed and poetry from Alison Brackenbury.

We mark the passing of Dame Vera Lynn, the Forces' Sweetheart, whose songs helped raise morale in World War Two. After Dame Vera's death, aged 103, was announced today, composer and author Neil Brand explores her unique musical gifts. 

Scottish guitarist Sean Shibe's critically acclaimed work brings a new approach to the classical guitar by experimenting with instruments and repertoire. His new album Bach: Pour La Luth Ò Cembal, featuring works written for the lute but played on guitar, is number one in the Official Specialist Classical Chart. 

PlacePrints is a series of audio plays by David Rudkin invoking the hidden stories imprinted on ten different locations around the UK, and spanning time from the Stone Age to the present day. Jack McNamara, director of theatre company New Perspectives, has been recording these vignettes over four years with actors including Josie Lawrence, Toby Jones, Stephen Rea, Juliet Stevenson and Michael Pennington. Theatre critic Susannah Clapp reviews this ambitious endeavour. 

Alison Brackenbury is Front Row’s poet-in-residence this week taking inspiration from her travels around the country. Wherever she goes Alison visits museums and galleries. Their current closure this has inspired her to write new poems about some of the museums she has visited, and so, imaginatively, open them up. Today she takes us back to the 16th century and to Holyroodhouse in Edinburgh. Here Mary, Queen of Scots, witnessed her husband murder her secretary, and confronted John Knox who objected to rule by ‘the monstrous regiment of women’.

Presenter: John Wilson 
Studio Manager: Matilda Macari 
Producer: Simon Richardson

Main image: Dame Vera Lynn

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Vera Lynn remembered, guitarist Sean Shibe, PlacePrints audio plays reviewed, Poetry from Alison Brackenbury

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