Standing in Line Review
23 April, 2008
Standing in Line by the internationally acclaimed singer-songwriter, Lester Simpson, was performed at Theatre Olympia, Chilwell School on Tuesday, April 22.Standing in Line is the story of Lester’s Great Uncle’s war and told powerfully with songs, stories and visual footage.
Narrator for the evening was one of the most knowledgeable Belgian historian/curators, Piet Chielens, and as musical accompaniment to Lester was Nigel Corbett, a well-known local musician.
90 Years
It will be 90 years this October since Albert Scrimshaw was killed in the third battle of Leper, better known as the battle of Passendale.
Albert, born 1885 Eastwell, Nottinghamshire worked as a butler near Oxford, married a girl from Windley, Derbyshire and became a farm labourer, he joined the ‘Ox and Bucks’ regiment and marched off to war never to return. His widow Annie lived in Duffield until her death in the 1970s.
The performance was excellent and had the audience enthralled from the very start. The words and music to accompany the narrative was moving and well written.
Deeply Moving
It was a deeply moving experience as the audience were informed in a powerful way of the awful conditions that these young men who had volunteered so willingly had to endure. Never knowing what would happen next or when they would be home.
Poems from Rudyard Kipling, Seigfred Sasson and Wilfred Owen were also read out with feeling and as an accurate representation of the First World War which accompanied the true story of Albert Scrimshaw.
Standing in Line has also been performed in Brussels, Antwerp and Leuven.
By editor@nottinghamng9.co.uk.
