A RETELLING WITH WORDS AND PERCUSSION BY

HUGH LUPTON AND RICK WILSON

Beowulf is the oldest story in the English language - and it still has the power to raise the hairs on the back of the neck! It tells of a hero’s life, a life that is mapped by three tremendous blood-curdling encounters. As a young man Beowulf defeats the monster Grendel and his even more terrifying Mother, the original creatures from the Black Lagoon. Then, as an old man, he tries his strength against a gold guarding Fire-Drake (a dragon). Alongside these adrenalin-charged encounters the story explores the journey we all make from the seeming invincibility of youth to the heroic vulnerability of old age.

The story has had a tremendous effect on the imagination of many writers and poets, most notably J.R.R. Tolkien. Without Beowulf there would have been no Lord of the Rings.

In this performance master-storyteller Hugh Lupton joins forces with one of Britain’s leading percussionists Rick Wilson. Bells, gongs and drums subtly and dramatically underpin the rich language of the story.

The performance is in two halves of approximately 40 minutes. Suitable for adults (no one under 10).

This show is going out at £750.

“…Lupton summoned the poem back to a bloody and ferocious life….. from the very first moment he began to speak he was utterly convincing… it was a careful and measured performance… a vigorous language that was at times playful and at times like repeated blows of a hammer. There can have been few more rewarding ways of spending yesterday evening in the West Midlands – or perhaps in the whole country – than in Lupton’s company” Birmingham Words, reviewing Beowulf. January 2005

MORE ABOUT RICK WILSON

Having spent a large part of the 1970s playing drum kit in numerous musical combinations, he spent an intense period at the beginning of the 1980s devising and touring Europe with avant rock group The Work. Initially self-taught on kit, he later studied Chenda temple drumming with Shankaran Marar and V.D.Nair in Kerala, south India; Berber rhythms in the Atlas mountains of Morocco and Brazilian carnival music with Sheda Baba in London.
As accompanist for education and performance dance projects,he has worked with Shobana Jeyasingh, T. Oonikrishnan and P.Jayachandran. He has also been a tutor for WOMAD and Glyndebourne and spent many years working throughout the UK with Common Lore Storytellers and Musicians, as both performer and teacher. In 1999 he completed a degree in non-western Music Studies at SOAS in London.

“a drummer of rare split-second sensibilty”...Sud Deutch Zeitung