To conclude his series of online monologues posted on the company's YouTube channel, Rohan Candappa has turned to the 80th anniversary of the London Blitz to draw some perhaps superficial comparisons with our current coronavirus situation.
It is a somewhat oblique message of hope, a warning, read by Guy Hughes. He takes us back to the London of 1940 and in his own words draws some 'crass parallels' between the two events of the London Blitz and now. Both have had innocent victims of all ages and social classes, and all have fallen foul to a "non-sentient threat", with seemingly very little help or guidance by those in charge. . However, the ultimate parallel drawn here is that at the height of the Blitz - the four weeks leading up to the 4th October 1940, London suffered 4677 fatalities due to the bombing; whilst in the four weeks in April 2020 at the height of the coronavirus pandemic, London suffered 5901 fatalities due to COVID19.
It's a sobering piece and watching this immediately after his last monologue "Choices", made it a rather difficult and highly emotive watch. There were two lines in the monologue which stood out, and I should like to share those with you here:
"There's the damage that's been done and the damage that's waiting to be done."
"In order to defeat the darkness you must walk towards it and embrace it."
The monologue ended with a song. A notebook had come to light from a certain ARP Warden Ronald Fuller who had written the lyrics (a poem perhaps) in it when he was on duty at The Strand in 1940. Guy Hughes composed the music, and here we listened to the world premiere of a song with lyrics written 80 years' ago. "A-Shrouding We Will Go". Despite the beauty of the music - and it was quite beautiful, I found it difficult to listen to.
An emotional and sobering end to some 20 online monologues written by company founder Rohan Candappa.
Reviewer - Matthew Dougall
on - 13/9/20
No comments:
Post a Comment