Lynx Theatre and Poetry

On 12 June 2016 William Alderson started a poem about the current times in the manner of Shelley’s Masque of Anarchy. Two days later the Grenfell Tower caught fire, and that disaster became the pivotal image for May Days, as the Peterloo massacre had been for Shelley.

 

May Days was immediately published by counterfire.org (which had not published poetry before), and their review described it as

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a “magnificent long poem” where “the reader is swept along by its controlled passion. It is a remarkable stimulus to appreciate the great possibilities in this kind of writing, of which so little is produced today.” 

 

Based on personal testimony, May Days is not the voice of one person but of the many victims of our times, and it uses “carefully crafted, and deeply felt verse” to capture these different voices.

 

This rehearsed reading, directed by the innovative director Simone Vause, was performed by five actors, including:

• Tayo Aluko, who is in international demand for his shows about Paul Robeson and  Tunji Sowande (Britain’s first black judge)

• Roger Gartland, formerly of the National Theatre and Not The National Theatre, and a celebrated performer of the work of Charles Dickens

• Karen McCaffrey

• Shane Chester

• Tiannah Viechweg

 

Lynx Theatre and Poetry commissioned the production to mark the anniversary of the Grenfell Tower fire and to raise funds for the victims, since, as the poem predicted, “the promises break and we are betrayed”, and many families have still not been properly re-housed.