Here is the last of the videos, ‘We Need More heroes’ from the tour last tour. Click here

 

These six videos are now in a Youtube playlist. Click here for full playlist

 

The show as set up by my friends in White Sail and we played it as a double bill. The stage was small and we had a lot of instruments which is why I didn’t play the piano that night. The Foryfive is situated in Mickelgate in the heart of old York. When I say old, I mean Roman and one thing you can be sure of is that there have been taverns in this street, drink taken, friendships made and music played continuously for at least 2000 years. This was just one night among many.

The subject for this song ‘We Need More Heroes’ was given to me by my friend Christian Suhr, director of the Büchner Bühne theatre in Germany where I have played many times. He suggested that that I write a song based on a poem by Zibigniew Herbert which was in turn based on the last scene of Shakespeare’s play Hamlet. I smiled politely and thought this was, shall we say… maybe not a practical suggestion.

However, a year later I started thinking about the idea again. It’s funny how history comes back to haunt you. Prince H finds out that his parent was murdered and that his other parent was complicit. He has the option either to confront the murder and probably be done in himself, or to pretend he is crazy and thus not a threat. That is what I like about classic themes, they seldom goes out of date. We need more heroes.