“Remember, remember, the 5th of November
The Gunpowder Treason and Plot”
– Traditional rhyme

“A desperate disease requires a dangerous remedy”
– Guy Fawkes

“Milton says [gunpowder] was invented by the devil to dispel angels with, and this opinion seems to derive some support from the scarcity of angels”
– Ambrose Bierce

“It is Guy Fawkes who is remembered today and King James who is forgotten”
– PL Travers

“The greatest Inventions were produced in Times of Ignorance; as the Use of the Compass, Gunpowder, and Printing; and by the dullest Nation, as the Germans”
– Jonathan Swift 1667-1745

“Look like th’innocent flower, but be the serpent under’t”
– Lady Macbeth, a reference to a medal commemorating the Gunpowder Plot

“It is impossible to understand the course of the Powder Treason unless one takes into account the magnetism of Robert Catesby.”
– Lady Antonia Fraser

“The world has been printing books for 450 years, and yet gunpowder still has a wider circulation. Never mind! Printer’s ink is the greater explosive: it will win.”
– Christopher Morley, American journalist

“As the ear is the antechamber to the soul, poetry can adulterate and destroy more surely then lust or gunpowder”
– Virginia Woolf

“Guy Fawkes was the last man to enter Parliament with good intentions”
– Lt Col AD Wintle

“Metaphor is no argument, though it be sometimes the gunpowder to drive one home, and imbed it in the memory”
– James Russell Lowell, American Romantic poet

“There is no harm in anybody thinking that Christ is in bread. The harm is in the expectation of His presence in gunpowder”
– John Ruskin

New light on old tunes

A VIRTUOSO trio of folk musicians, Jon Doran and the Northern Assembly, have a short tour with Artsreach, coming to the village halls at Shipton Gorge on Friday 7th November, Langton Matravers on Saturday 8th and Drimpton on Sunday 9th, all at 7.30pm.

Shining a new light on old tunes and tales from the British Isles, this new musical collaboration seeks to capture the excitement that lies within traditional song and breathe new life into old stories by injecting the energy they feel these narratives deserve.

With virtuosic instrumentalists Heather Ferrier (accordion) and Jordan Aikin (whistles and pipes), the trio create songs that combine exhilarating contemporary arrangements with the much loved traditional performance style and striking vocals of acclaimed folk singer Jon Doran.

Consciously moving away from the conventional folk song performance style, the trio rely upon their vastly dissimilar musical upbringings and experiences to conjure emotions and communicate a story far deeper than the words of the song.