Dead Poets Live
The Broken Word
London
Dead Poets Live were delighted to return The Print Room with The Broken Word, a great modern poem by Adam Foulds, featuring Tom Hiddleston, George MacKay, Yasmin Paige, Faaiz Mbelizi and Toby Jones.
Adam Foulds is not a dead poet. He is, however, the author of one of the finest long verse narratives of the last quarter century. The Broken Word (winner of the 2008 Costa Poetry Award and the Somerset Maugham Award) is the story of a young man who returns to his family farm in Kenya before going up to Oxford and finds himself caught up in the Mau Mau rebellion – and in its brutal suppression. The poem addresses terror, violence and spiritual disgrace with a propulsive narrative economy that recalls Homer or classical drama, but it is also lyrical, domestic, touching and precise. It’s an overwhelming experience: compassionate, unsettling and a masterfully clear-eyed examination of our colonial legacy. Dead Poets Live’s setting is a response to the poem’s inherent drama, and a one-off theatrical event.
All proceeds went to Safe Passage.
This performance was filmed by T. S. Eliot Foundation and Print Room at the Coronet.
Performers
Tom Hiddleston’s theatre credits include: Hamlet, Coriolanus, Ivanov, Othello, Cymbeline, The Changeling.
His film credits include: Avengers: Infinity War, Thor: Ragnarok, Kong: Skull Island, I Saw The Light, High-Rise, Crimson Peak, Thor: The Dark World, Exhibition, Only Lovers Left Alive, Avengers, War Horse, The Deep Blue Sea, Thor, Archipelago, Unrelated.
His television credits include: The Night Manager, The Hollow Crown (Henry IV Parts I & II, Henry V), Wallander, Miss Austen Regrets, The Gathering Storm.
He lives in London.
George MacKay is best known for starring roles in, among other films, The Boys Are Back, Private Peaceful, How I Live Now, Sunshine on Leith, Pride, For Those In Peril, Captain Fantastic and Ophelia. He’s just returned from Australia, where he was playing Ned Kelly, in the film of Peter Carey’s True History of the Kelly Gang.
He has featured on stage at the Old and Young Vic, in The Caretaker and Ah, Wilderness. Work for television includes series roles in The Outcast and 11.22.63.
Yasmin Paige has given outstanding performances on both film and TV, notably as the lead in Richard Ayoade’s Submarine and opposite Jesse Eisenberg in the same director’s The Double. She has starred in BBC Three’s Pramface and in Jack Thorne’s Glue for E4.
Faaiz Mbelizi is of Kenyan and Tanzanian heritage and grew up in North West London. He was a member of three youth theatres; The Almeida Theatre, Lyric Hammersmith and The National Youth Theatre. Faaiz has just finished performing as Hakeem in Free and Proud by multi-award-winning Em-Lou Productions at Edinburgh Fringe and the Kings Head in London. Other theatre credits include: The Ostrich Boys at the Belgrade Theatre, It Is So Ordered at the Pleasance Theatre, Deadly Dialogues at Edinburgh Fringe and in New York and Our Lady of 121st at Rose Bruford College. Faaiz is a spoken word poet and amateur photographer. One of his pictures was shown at the Tate late in 2017. He is currently writing his first short film and play.
A star of stage and screen, a Golden Globe and Bafta nominee, returning for the third time to Dead Poets Live following appearances in Bob Dylan: The Words of the Songs and last year’s Hallowe’en show, Toby Jones made his breakthrough as Truman Capote in the biopic Infamous. Film appearances has since included The Mist, W., Frost/Nixon, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy and Dad’s Army. Television credits include Capital, Sherlock and Titanic. As well as the new series of Detectorists, last year’s work included the voice of Owl in Christopher Robin, Michael Haneke’s Happy End and the most recent Jurassic Park.
Photos of the event
Poems read
The Broken Word by Adam Foulds
Photography and portrait of Toby Jones © Tara Rowse