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Front Row: Lee Lawrence, the impact of Brexit on classical music, Twelfth Night tradition at Theatre Royal Drury Lane

06/01/2021

Lee Lawrence, the impact of Brexit on classical music, Twelfth Night tradition at Theatre Royal Drury Lane

BBC Radio 4 - Front Row, Lee Lawrence, the impact of Brexit on classical music, Twelfth Night tradition at Theatre Royal Drury Lane

Winner of the Costa Biography Award, Lee Lawrence on his memoir The Louder I Will Sing

Winner of the Costa Biography Award, Lee Lawrence on his memoir The Louder I Will Sing about his fight for justice after his mother was shot by police.

On 28th September 1985 Lee Lawrence’s mother Cherry Groce was shot by police during an armed raid on her Brixton home.  Lee Lawrence talks to Samira Ahmed about his Costa Biography award winning memoir The Louder I will Sing in which he recounts the devastating impact the shooting had on the family’s life and his courageous fight for justice.

As British musicians warn that costly post-Brexit bureaucracy could decimate European touring, we discuss the potential impact of the recent Brexit Trade Deal on the music industry. With Deborah Annetts from the Incorporated Society of Musicians, Mark Pemberton from the Association of British Orchestras and conductor Paul McCreesh, founder of the Grammy award-winning baroque ensemble, the Gabrieli Consort. 

Actor Robert Baddeley, a member of David Garrick’s company at  Theatre Royal Drury Lane, created a tradition when he died in 1794. In his will, he left £100 to be invested and each year, the money from that sum be spent on “the purchase of a twelfth Cake or Cakes and Wine and Punch or both of them which it is my request the Ladies and Gentlemen performers of Theatre Royal Drury Lane will do me the favour to accept on twelfth night in every year in the Green Room”. Ever since the company playing has enjoyed Baddeley's largesse on January 6th. Theatre stage manager and author Nicholas Bromley joins us to reveal one of the longest standing British Theatre traditions. 

Presenter: Samira Ahmed
Producer: Julian May

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Lee Lawrence, the impact of Brexit on classical music, Twelfth Night tradition at Theatre Royal Drury Lane

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