Press Release OCTOBER 2020
#ECHR70 #NurembergTrials75
4th November 2020 20th November 2020
"The idea of fundamental human rights is one in which I firmly believe."
David Maxwell Fyfe
A FORGOTTEN STORY TOLD FOR NEW GENERATIONS
English Cabaret commemorate two significant anniversaries, releasing a new film, book, recording and podcast.
This November marks two significant anniversaries - 75 years since the opening of the Nuremberg War Crimes Trials, and
70 since the signing of the European Convention on Human Rights. These events are linked by David Maxwell Fyfe,
a British prosecutor at Nuremberg and one of two artisans of the Convention.
To commemorate, a new generation of his family are sharing the story of his journey from Nuremberg to Strasbourg
through Sue Casson’s song cycle, Dreams of Peace & Freedom. Performing the piece and bringing the story alive through
social media storytelling, they are bridging the generational divide to tell a forgotten piece of history across multi-media platforms.
Lily and Robert, David Maxwell Fyfe's great grand children and the storytellers, explain why this story is so relevant now :
We first performed in Dreams of Peace & Freedom at the Edinburgh Fringe in 2014, and since then, have been on a 5 year journey of our own to discover the life of our great grandfather and how it has affected
the world we live in today.
His story reminds us that we need to remember not only that people fought but why.
With our telling, we want to bring this forgotten history alive for people of our own age in the social media generation to make it as important to them, as it has been for us. By watching, reading and listening, we hope they will immerse themselves in the stories we tell, to see past events from a different perspective.
We feel we need to share this story of peace and freedom after tyranny and war as widely as possible. We invite everyone to WATCH, READ, LISTEN with us on the anniversaries.
Composer of Dreams of Peace & Freedom Sue Casson adds:
Song cycle Dreams of Peace & Freedom, is at the heart of our multi-platform telling which takes inspirational quotations from the speeches, letters and autobiography of David Maxwell Fyfe, and threads them through musical settings of poetry he found inspiring. The melody infuses his chosen poetic words with another unspoken dimension – emotion to reinforce the story, rather as in his speeches, the poetry he regularly quoted, heightened the tenor of his legal argument.
Tom Blackmore, artistic director of English Cabaret, sums up :
This November we remember the restoration of freedom under the law after the barbarity of war and terror. The sacrifice of the Second World War was made to protect that freedom, which was the foundation of the everyday life cherished by all. Those who fought and died demanded its restoration and protection, and this was the beginning of those demands being satisfied. The leaders of Nazi Germany were given the natural justice that they denied so many, and Europe united to prevent the repeat of the barbarism of Germany under the Nazis by securing rights and freedoms.
