REMEMBER YOUR LOVERS - The Poetry of Sidney Keyes

An audio poetry recital

Devised by Neil McPherson from the poetry of Sidney Keyes.
Directed by Catherine Harvey.

Recorded by Angus Chisholm and Catherine Harvey. Edited by Iain Mackness and Angus Chisholm. Sound Design by Iain Mackness. Assistant Direction by Erica Miller.
Presented by Rhyme & Reason and Roguegunners Productions in association with the Finborough Theatre.
Cast: Claire Bloom. Catherine Harvey. Alexander Knox. Neil McPherson. Annabel Mullion. Louise Mai Newberry. Will de Renzy-Martin. Whoopie Van Raam.

‘I am the man who looked for peace and found
My own eyes barbed.
I am the man who groped for words and found
An arrow in my hand.’

Commemorating VJ Day, the 80th anniversary of the end of the Second World War, the Finborough Theatre’s digital initiative #FinboroughFrontier continues with a new audio poetry recital – Remember Your Lovers, a rediscovery of the poetry of Sidney Keyes, one of Britain’s finest Second World War poets, featuring acting legend Claire Bloom.

Sidney Keyes was born in 1922 in Dartford, Kent, and died in battle in mysterious circumstances in Tunisia, just twenty years later.

Alongside Keith Douglas and Alun Lewis, although younger than both, Sidney Keyes is widely regarded as one of Britain’s outstanding poets of the Second World War. He was awarded a posthumous Hawthornden Prize for his work.

Remember Your Lovers rediscovers Keyes’s poems to tell his story through the women he loved – above all, his unrequited passion for the German Jewish refugee artist Milein Cosman – as he confronted the devastating reality of a world at war.

Image of Sidney Keyes drawn by Milein Cosman with the kind permission of The Cosman Keller Art and Music Trust www.cosmankellertrust.org