The Dark Tower

The first mention of the Dark Tower is in King Lear, when Edgar disguises himself as a fool and talks in nonsense. In 1855, Robert Browning wrote a dark and nightmarish poem on the theme of a knight seeking a strange tower, crossing various hurdles in order to reach his goal. Following the Second World War, Irish poet Louis MacNeice wrote a radio play for the BBC adapting the same themes as a parable on the plight of young men sent by their mothers to war, with a score by Benjamin Britten. This new piece, with a cast of over forty young singers and actors and an ensemble of piano players and percussionists, will take the original text as source material and respond directly to the themes within it: namely, warfare and the role of young people.