Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Art-For-Art’s-Sake Theatre: Show of Hands “Roots”

Time once again for our usual midday Wednesday feature.

For the past ten weeks, we have been discussing the revisions to the English-language Novus Ordo Missae. Imagine walking into the parish where you grew up as a child, and realizing both from the style of worship, and their comportment in its setting, that those whom you knew your entire life, no longer realize they once had a heritage, much less that they have lost it. Steve Knightley and Phil Beer, known collectively as Show of Hands, produced a song lamenting the cost in everyday life.

The song is a rallying cry for the English to get behind their identity and musical heritage, spurred by a certain comment by Dr Kim Howells – that his idea of hell was three Somerset folk singers in the pub.

Well, I've got a vision of urban sprawl
There's pubs where no-one ever sings at all

And everyone stares at a great big screen
Overpaid soccer stars, prancing teens ...

It found champions in unlikely quarters, with some even calling for it to be the new national anthem!

Without our stories or our songs
How will we know where we come from?

Such is the way of life itself. Such is the way of our Faith.
 

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