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THE LATEST PROGRAMME |
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Fiona Shaw returns with a third series of features evoking soundscapes of the past - this time, the acoustic world of Charles Dickens' Victorian London.
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"Like the swell of the sea surge, beating upon a pebbly shore" That's how the sound of 19th century London was described from three miles away. The world of Dickens was a place of tremendous noise, but with a pitch and range of sounds that would have a strange ring in our differently tuned ears. In this new series of Lend Me Your Ears, Fiona Shaw recreates the soundworld that would have been familiar to Charles Dickens as he walked the streets of London, observing the sights and sounds of the city."
Programme 1 - A Whole Lot of Shouting Going On
In the first programme - which is about the sounds of the street - the cheery romantic vision of sweetly singing street sellers familiar from the musical 'Oliver' will give way to the rather more grim sloshing about of sewer-hunters and bustle of dog poo collectors.
 Listen again programme 1.
Programme 2 - O Let us Love Our Occupations
A fish auction at Billingsgate, the musical butchers and the scratching of a quill pen in Scrooge's Counting House. Fiona Shaw recreates the acoustic world of the Dickensian workplace.
Listen again programme 2.
Programme 3 - The Sweet Sounds of Home
The Home was revered during the Victorian era. The Angel in the House was the ideal, enthusiastically promoted by Dickens, but what was it really like inside the domestic idyll? Fiona Shaw puts her ear to the keyhole of a Victorian parlour.
Listen again programme 3.
Programme 4 - Down by the Docks
Watermen vying for attention, the rattle of turnstiles on the bridges, cranes cranking cargoes ashore. Fiona Shaw tunes her ear to the sounds of life on the River Thames when Charles Dickens roamed its banks making notes for Great Expectations.
Listen again programme 4.
Programme 5 - A Whirl of Entertainments
Fiona Shaw eavesdrops on a night out in Dickens' London, including a performance at Astley's Amphitheatre, where the show was part circus, part pantomime and part theatre-on-horseback, and the horses often shared equal billing with the actors.
Listen again programme 5.
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