THE NEW SCORPION BAND

in their acclaimed programme

SOUND THE JUBILEE!

Traditional songs, Stories and Music of the Movement to Abolish the Slave Trade 1780- 1807

Friday 29 February

8pm

£8 Adults / £6 U16

As an active sea port, dating back for centuries, Lyme’s Cobb has seen many different cargos brought in to it’s shelter. There is clear evidence of Lyme’s role in the slave trade in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and so interest will be high in Tim Laycock’s acclaimed production of “Sound the Jubilee” to be performed at the Marine Theatre on Friday 29 February at 8.00 p.m. Tickets are £8.00 for adults and £6.00 for U16s from the Lyme TIC 01297 442138. With songs to touch the heart that are drawn from both the slaves and the sailor’s perspectives, this show is a rich, thought-provoking evening’s entertainment.

“ We weighed our anchor, put to sea, our cargo it being slaves
T'would be far better for those men they were going unto their graves”…

Drawing on the extraordinary legacy of music that reflects the social and economic conditions in Britain, West Africa and the West Indies, the show will include Sea Shanties influenced by Work songs and Spirituals; Broadside ballads and sailors’ songs that bring vividly to life voices from the past; and dance tunes and instrumental music adapted and transformed by the meeting and mingling of African and European traditions in new geographical settings. The music and song in Sound the Jubilee is linked by readings from Olaudah Equiano, Hannah Moore, John Newton, Ottobah Cuguano, William Wilberforce, John Wesley, William Cowper and other contemporary voices from both sides of the debate. The theatre will display a recent exhibition from the Town Museum of Lyme and West Dorset’s relations with ethnic minorities,  and books will be for sale from the Museum that touch on this aspect of our history.  

The five members of the New Scorpion Band are uniquely qualified to explore this rich heritage of story and song. The band has a wide repertoire of songs and music from drawn from the traditional music from the British Isles and Ireland, and are renowned both for the quality of their vocal harmonies and their subtle use of a wide range of folk and historical instruments. The band are joined for this performance by actor Tas Emiabata from Shakespeare’s Globe.