A Soldier and a Maker

Three-quarters of a century after his death, the WWI soldier Ivor Gurney is finally celebrated as a poet and a composer. This Gloucester-born tailor's son thought of himself as both, preferring the term 'maker'. He was many things beside: soldier, cricketer, crack shot, cake-eater, nightwalker, wit, faithful if exasperating friend and, for the last 17 years of his life, asylum inmate. Interweaving new material with Gurney's own music, poems and letters, the pianist and song expert Iain Burnside has created a unique piece of music theatre. His Guildhall School cast combines 16 vocalists (filling 43 acting and singing roles), two pianists and actor Richard Goulding as Gurney. Directed by Iain Burnside; with designs by Giuseppe and Emma Belli.