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Travelling Fairs and Circuses

The weekly sequence of music, poetry and prose takes time to visit the fair, with words by Hardy, Wordsworth, Bunyan and Lorca, and music by Debussy, Stravinsky and Richard Rodgers

The weekly sequence of music, poetry and prose takes time out to visit the world of excitement, bargains, colour, debauchery and petty crime that is the fair, with words by Hardy, Evelyn, Bunyan, Wordsworth, Dickens and Lorca, and music by Debussy, Stravinsky and Richard Rodgers, June Tabor and The Beatles among others. Joanne Froggatt and James Bolam are the readers.

1 hour, 14 minutes

Last on

Sun 17 May 2020 17:30
大象传媒 Radio 3

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Music Played

Timings (where shown) are from the start of the programme in hours and minutes

  • Federico Garc铆a Lorca, translated by Jerome Rothenberg

    A Moon at the Fair, read by Joanne Froggatt

  • 00:00

    Igor Stravinsky

    Petrushka -聳 excerpt

    Performer: Budapest Festival Orchestra, Iv谩n Fischer (conductor).
    • HUNGAROTON HCD31095.
    • Tr 8.
  • 00:04

    Igor Stravinsky

    Petrushka (excerpt)

    Orchestra: Budapest Festival Orchestra. Conductor: Iv谩n Fischer.

  • William Wordsworth

    The Prelude, Book 7, read by James Bolam

  • 00:08

    Trad. English

    Jockey to the Fair

    Performer: Magpie Lane.
    • BEAUTIFUL JO BEJOCD6.
    • Tr 11.

  • John Evelyn

    Diary extract, read by James Bolam

  • 00:11

    Anon. English

    聭Playford Set聮 - excerpt

    Performer: Giles Lewin (fiddles).
    • PARK RECORDS PRKCD103.
    • Tr 1.
  • 00:12

    Traditional English

    Jockey to the Fair

    Ensemble: Magpie Lane.

  • James Greenwood

    Unsentimental Journeys; or Byways of the Modern Babylon, read by James Bolam

  • 00:14

    Anonymous

    Playford Set

    Performer: Giles Lewin.
  • 00:16

    The Beatles

    Being For The Benefit Of Mr. Kite!

    • PARLOPHONE CDP7464422.
    • Tr 7.

  • Charles Dickens

    Hard Times, read by Joanne Froggatt

  • 00:20

    Lennon-McCartney

    For the Benefit of Mr Kite

    Ensemble: The Beatles.
  • 00:20

    Richard Rodgers

    Carousel Waltz

    Performer: Unnamed orchestra conducted by Alfred Newman.
    • CAPITOL CDP7466352.
    • Tr 1.

  • Federico Garc铆a Lorca, translated by Jerome Rothenberg

    Wooden Horses, read by Joanne Froggatt

  • 00:24

    Tom Waits

    Black Rider

    Performer: Tom Waits.
    • ISLAND 524 519-2.
    • Tr 4.
  • 00:24

    Richard Rodgers

    Carousel Waltz

    Orchestra: Orchestra. Conductor: Alfred Newman.

  • John Bunyan

    The Pilgrim聮s Progress, read by James Bolam

  • 00:28

    Tom Waits

    Black Rider

  • 00:30

    Nick Cave

    The Carny

    Performer: Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds.
    • MUTE CDSTUMM34.
    • Tr 4.
  • 00:33

    Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds

    The Carny

  • Anon.

    Animal Fair, read by Joanne Froggatt

  • 00:38

    Igor Stravinsky

    Circus Polka

    Performer: London Symphony Orchestra, Michael Tilson Thomas (conductor).
    • RCA 09026688652.
    • Tr 2.

  • John Updike

    Topsfield Fair, read by Joanne Froggatt

  • 00:42

    Igor Stravinsky

    Circus Polka

    Orchestra: London Symphony Orchestra. Conductor: Michael Tilson Thomas.
  • 00:42

    Trad. English

    The Wherligig

    Performer: The Harp Consort, Andrew Lawrence-King (director).
    • DEUTSCHE HARMONIA MUNDI 05472775162.
    • Tr 16.

  • Thomas Hardy

    The Mayor of Casterbridge, read by Joanne Froggatt

  • 00:46

    Traditional English

    The Wherligig

    Ensemble: The Harp Consort. Conductor: Andrew Lawrence鈥怟ing.
  • 00:47

    Ralph McTell

    The Hiring Fair

    Performer: Vikki Clayton.
    • ROAD GOES ON FOREVER RGFCD013.
    • Tr 13.
  • 00:51

    Ralph McTell

    The Hiring Fair

    Performer: Vikki Clayton.

  • William Cobbett

    Rural Rides, read by James Bolam

  • 00:55

    Trad. English

    Scarborough Fair

    Performer: Martin Carthy.
    • FREE REED FRQCD60.
    • Tr 1.
  • 00:59

    Traditional English

    Scarborough Fair

    Performer: Martin Carthy.

  • Austin Clarke

    The Fair at Windgap, read by James Bolam

  • 01:02

    Claude Debussy

    F锚tes (from 3 Nocturnes)

    Performer: Montreal Symphony Orchestra, Charles Dutoit (conductor).
    • DECCA 425 502 2.
    • Tr 7.
  • 01:06

    Claude Debussy

    Fetes (Nocturnes)

    Orchestra: Orchestre symphonique de Montr茅al. Conductor: Charles Dutoit.

  • Thomas Hardy

    After the Fair, read by Joanne Froggatt

  • 01:09

    John Tams

    Pull Down Lads

    Performer: June Tabor.
    • TOPIC TSCD298.
    • Tr 10.
  • 01:13

    John Tams

    Pull Down Lads

    Performer: June Tabor.

Producer note

Do you find fairgrounds fun, or frightening? I thought at first that my answer was the former, and that putting together a programme about travelling fairs and circuses, their excitement, seasonal evocativeness and sense of celebration, would be all painted horses, candy floss and dancing on the village green. The further I got, however, the more it became apparent that their dark side 鈥� their noise, gaudiness, abandon, debauchery, criminality, even death (and actually, aren鈥檛 those painted horses sometimes a bit scary?) is what seems to have preoccupied many of the musicians and writers to have come to the subject. Lorca鈥檚 set of poems entitled (in some cases enigmatically) 鈥楩airs鈥� hints at danger with typical effortlessness and economy, while John Bunyan pictures his imagined 鈥榁anity Fair鈥� as a trap for the virtuous laid by the Devil, no less. In his poetic memoir The Prelude, Wordsworth cannot hide a certain fascination with the sheer bustle and colour of London鈥檚听 Bartholomew Fair, but his final image of it is ugly, and though there is humour in Victorian journalist James Greenwood鈥檚 account of Barnet Fair, it is truly a polemic of disgust.

On a note perhaps more melancholy than indignant, John Updike laments the predicament of the caged animal in his poem 鈥楾opsfield Fair鈥�;听 William Cobbett, visiting on a 鈥榬ural ride鈥� one of the biggest livestock fairs in Britain at Weyhill in Hampshire, is struck by the plight of farmers in a depressed market; and Thomas Hardy famously took an account he read in a newspaper of a man drunkenly selling his wife at a horse fair as the seed of his novel The Mayor of Casterbridge. 听

Musicians also seem to have seen fairs as settings for the sinister: the Shrovetide Fair in Stravinsky鈥檚 ballet Petrushka is a scene for love, jealousy and death; Tom Waits runs a ride that you would not let want to let your children on; and the dark goings-on in Nick Cave鈥檚 The Carny sound too gruesome to contemplate.

Yet some have found untainted pleasure in thoughts of the fair, such as the Irish poet Austin Clarke, whose reminiscence of 鈥楾he Fair at Windgap鈥� glints with nostalgia (including, one suspects, for the fight at the end of it!), or John Evelyn, whose diary account of one of the great 17th-century Thames frost fairs is lit by a sense of pleasurable wonderment. Love can hatch on the fairground too, as in Ralph McTell鈥檚 song 鈥楾he Hiring Fair鈥� (sung by Vikki Clayton), and perhaps in the minds of the young women wandering homeward in Hardy鈥檚 鈥楢fter the Fair鈥�. Naturally this poem is the last spoken item in today鈥檚 programme, to be followed by a coda of suitably weary content in June Tabor鈥檚 song of a site being struck in Pull Down Lads. Roll up everybody!

听

Lindsay Kemp

Broadcasts

  • Sun 30 Nov 2014 17:30
    大象传媒 Radio 3
  • Sun 17 May 2020 17:30
    大象传媒 Radio 3

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