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Folk
Hampstead Theatre
CECIL SHARP has been called the Father of folk music. Like a musicological hunter-gatherer he scoured England hoovering up songs of the underclass and disseminated them to a much wider audience. He collected thousands both here and in the Appalachian mountains in the US.
Bob Dylan owes a great debt to him as do Morris dancers. Nell Leyshon’s play features just four folk; glove maker Louie Hooper, (Mariam Haque) her half sister Lucy, (Sasha Frost) John (Ben Allen) a farm labourer (and Lucy’s on-off boyfriend) and Cecil Sharp, (Simon Robson).
Louie is in mourning for her dead mother when Sharp turns up at her Somerset dwelling and is captivated by her pure heartfelt voice and vast repertoire.
As he transcribes her song to his notebook he bemoans the state of English music, telling Louie that the last great English composer was Purcell and he was 300 years ago: “To the Germans we are a ‘land without music,’ the great Norwegian composer Grieg is incorporating folk song into his symphonies!”
But Louie is unfazed and remains almost rooted to her native soil like a Somerset apple tree. To her, the black notes are like butterflies pinned to the page but utterly lifeless.
Off he flits back to London to publish his treasure trove of rustic airs.
In act two he returns with the publication and plays Louie her tune as written. She is mortified; it has none of the life of her countryside of changing seasons and her deep knowledge of nature.
What’s more he has changed her tune. He explains he tidied it up for his middle-class urban followers. “Come back to London with me and sing for large audiences, not just this rural backwater,” he exhorts, but rooted she remains.
At times Folk seems to veer towards My Fair Lady land with professor Henry Higgins growing accustomed to Eliza Doolittle’s face but, happily, it backs off.
Leyshon also has, running in the background, a theme about machines taking over from man (which causes John’s emigration to Canada) but the play is on much firmer ground with music and asking whether adaptation is a form of robbery. The singing from all the cast is excellent with Haque’s soaring voice a special delight.
As we left, Ralph Vaughan Williams’s music was playing; now there was a great English composer vastly influenced by folk music.
Ends July 30 2022. Box office: 020 7722 9301, www.hampsteadtheatre.com
