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Songs from Coope Boyes & Simpson feature in an innovative Radio 3 production, Crossing The Bar which combines dramatised versions of sea-narratives by the 19th century poet, Alfred Tennyson with traditional material and songs written by Jim Boyes and Lester Simpson.

BBC Radio 3
Drama On 3 - Crossing The Bar
Sunday 11 March
8.00-9.30pm

BBC Radio 3 presents a headlong plunge into the sea narratives of Alfred, Lord Tennyson, laced with sea songs from the acclaimed folk vocal trio Coope, Boyes and Simpson.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Poet Laureate, spent the greater part of his mature years at Farringford, his home in Freshwater on the Isle of Wight. He spent a good deal of time walking by the sea, beside which he built himself a summer house with wide views in which to work. Here he wrote, in the space of two weeks, his most popular work Enoch Arden (1864), which sold 60,000 copies almost immediately.

The sea is a recurring swell in Tennyson's work and this programme celebrates his achievement by linking the sea drama of Enoch Arden with the mesmeric and mythical storytelling of The Voyage Of Maeldune and the sea-sodden gems of the poems The Kraken, The Sea Fairies and his memorable and graceful anticipation of death - Crossing The Bar.

The spirit of Tennyson's sea narratives is matched by a clutch of sea-songs sung in the resounding voices of Coope, Boyes and Simpson, described as "quite simply the best purveyors of a cappella song on these Islands".

The cast, drawn from the ranks of the Radio Drama Company, includes Stuart McLoughlin as Enoch Arden, Joseph Kloska as Philip Ray and Jasmine Callan as Annie Lee. Sam Dale is the Narrator, and the music is composed by Nicolai Abrahamsen, newly appointed as Radio Drama's third Composer in Residence.

Producer/David Hunter

CONTACT: georgina@nomasters.co.uk

Visit the Website of Coope, Boyes and Simpson and the No Masters website

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