Edinburgh 2002

Fringe

Milton!
Let thy song soar
Greyfriars Kirk House

Stuart Simpson

For anyone who loves theatre, being at the Fringe is like being a kid in a sweet shop. The sheer number of acts is overwhelming, and the variety fills you with a sense that all is well with British theatre, or the future of British theatre at any rate.

There is no act that could compete with the professionalism and standards of the RSC for example, but that isn't really the point of the Fringe. The Fringe is an arena where ideas can be tried out that wouldn't get an audience elsewhere.

Milton! Let thy song soar is a performance that you could only see at the festival. David Guthrie Burns recites from memory the whole of Book One from Milton's Paradise Lost. Although there are poetry readings every night in London, and I imagine most other major cities, what is read is solely contemporary. To be fair to the performer, the show has been taken elsewhere, just not anywhere I have been or am ever likely to go.

For those who do not know the poem, this is the best introduction you are ever likely to get, for those who do know the poem this is unmissable. Paradise Lost was written to be spoken aloud, not read. Milton, who was blind and so was unable to write down the poem himself, composed aloud, his words being transcribed by others. This performance provides the opportunity to listen to the classic dramatic poem as it was meant to be heard, recited with grandeur and eloquence.

The production reveals much about the poem which can easily be missed if read alone, of a quiet evening, as you slowly drift off to sleep with the words of Satan or of Gabriel ringing through your mind. The question that faced the contemporary reader of Paradise Lost, was how could Milton successfully render a story that was held sacred, and with which everyone was familiar. The question that faces the modern audience is how can Milton successfully render a tale that is commonly thought to be a little naive and not at all relevant to our times. The plot is to literature what the theory of a flat earth is to science. The answer to both questions never seemed so clear to me as when I sat listening to Milton's words.

Satan may be a wonderful literary invention. He is proud, vindictive, hateful and arrogant, and as seductive to us as he was to Eve. He is also great, towering above mere mortals, both literally and in terms of strength of character and of purpose. But Milton is greater. I'm sure it has been said before, that Milton's voice is the strongest voice in the poem, but saying it and feeling it in your gut are very different things.

My only criticism of the performance, is that it is only Book One. I am assured, however, that Book Two, and maybe Book Three will be back at the Fringe next year. So watch this space...

Until August 26: 12.05 (I hr 25 mins).