As well as being an avid collector of folk songs – inspiring Cecil Sharp to follow in his footsteps 10 years after him – Baring-Gould was also one of the Victorian era’s best-selling novelists, the writer of a gruesome book on werewolves, the author of a nerve-tingling book of ghost stories, the compiler of one of the finest Dartmoor travel books – and composer of the hymn Onward Christian Soldiers – with a tune by Sir Arthur Sullivan.
Of all of these achievements, Baring-Gould wrote: ‘To this day I consider that the recovery of our West Country melodies has been the principle achievement of my life.’
He interleaved folk songs he’d collected and wove real people and events into his fiction, to give it life. And that’s what Jim and Miranda do in the show, where they’re joined by narrator John Palmer, creator of the critically acclaimed Vaughan Williams 150 Anniversary From Pub to Pulpit tour.