#before action

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‘Asleep’ by Wilfred Owen recited by Eddie Redmayne 

You can watch the video here

100th Anniversary of Wilfred Owens death and still his words have a profound impact. Eddie Redmayne's recitation as part of “Before Action” and "Poppy Fields" installations by Luxmuralis

The installation returns to the place where it was first seen in 2016 Lichfield Cathedral on the 8/9/11 November 2018 (x)

[bespokeredmayne]

'Before Action' read by Eddie Redmayne

Eddie Redmayne recording part of 'Before Action' for Lichfield Cathedral's event commemorating the Somme in August 2016

Reprise of Eddie’s World War I tribute

Eddie Redmayne’s emotional readings of four war poems — which debuted in August 2016 as part of an art installation at Lichfield Cathedral commemorating the Battle of the Somme in World War I — are making a return.

Artist and creator Peter Walker tells us the immersive, multimedia exhibit will visit Guildford Cathedral, Christ Church Cathedral Oxford, and St. Albans this fall before returning to Lichfield, “and is the last time the recordings will be heard and films shown.”

Back when Eddie recorded the poems at Lichfield, Walker described his reading: “Eddie has created a series of four remarkably moving recitations of war poems for the installation this summer. He was very generous in donating his time, and his support of the Artist in Residence program has been wonderful.”

This was just the latest in Eddie’s devotion to the memory of the those lost in World War I. The first recorded evidence: a video from his Eton College years reading a soldier’s poignant letter during a Christmas truce.

As part of his preparation to appear in the BBC dramatization of “Birdsong,” he visited the Somme and its tunnels with the La Boisselle Study Group and co-star Joseph Mawle.

And in 2014, he helped launch the official World War I Centenary with a reading at a soldiers’ cemetery in Liege, Belgium.

Finally, there was his exquisite 2015 documentary War Art, in which he saw the anguish of battle through the eyes of filmmaker Margy Kinmonth and the artists who endangered — and lost — their lives to capture the horror of battle.

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Remembering

This is Memorial Day weekend in the U.S., with Monday the day to honor those who have died serving their country.

Through his role as World War I soldier Stephen Wraysford in Birdsong, his presentation of the documentary, “War Art,” and his readings of poems and letters from soldiers since he was a schoolboy, Eddie Redmayne has captured the poignancy of war and loss.

He and Birdsong co-star Joseph Mawle went into the World War I tunnels of the Somme to research their roles, and Eddie tells of finding a soldier’s poem scratched into the chalky surface that he copied for inspiration in his portrayal: “If in this place you are detained/Don’t look around you all in vain/But cast your net and you shall find/That every cloud is silver lined... Still.”

•VIDEO: Eddie reading the poem, “Before Action,” for an exhibit at Lichfield Cathedral in the U.K. in summer 2016. https://youtu.be/eqdo4PsGxGQ

•VIDEO: Eddie, at the age of 16, reading a World War I soldier’s letter, “The Christmas Truce,” accompanied by the Eton College and St. George’s Chapel choirs: https://youtu.be/IMTsXOKLDpQ

•VIDEO: Trailer for “War Art” https://youtu.be/Oh2ju01PyjY

[Photos: Birdsong (top), battlefield scenes from “War Art” (second and third), viewing the John Singer Sargent painting, “Gassed,” at the Imperial War Museum in London for “War Art.”]

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Lichfield Cathedral - Before Action installation highlights

2 poems: Before Action by W.N.Hodgson - Asleep by Wilfred Owen

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Luxmuralis 'Before Action' highlights from Lichfield Cathedral

“By all the days that I have lived Make me a solider, Lord.” 

Before Action - poem by W.N.Hodgson

“And soon the slow, stray blood came creeping From the intruding lead, like ants on track.”

“Who knows? Who hopes? Who troubles? Let it pass! He sleeps. He sleeps less tremulous, less cold, Than we who wake, and waking say Alas!”

Asleep - poem by Wilfred Owen

[thedeadofflandersfields]

By all the glories of the day    And the cool evening’s benison    By that last sunset touch that lay    Upon the hills when day was done,    By beauty lavishly outpoured    And blessings carelessly received,    By all the days that I have lived    Make me a soldier, Lord.    By all of all man’s hopes and fears    And all the wonders poets sing,    The laughter of unclouded years,    And every sad and lovely thing;    By the romantic ages stored    With high endeavour that was his,    By all his mad catastrophes    Make me a man, O Lord.    I, that on my familiar hill    Saw with uncomprehending eyes    A hundred of thy sunsets spill    Their fresh and sanguine sacrifice,    Ere the sun swings his noonday sword    Must say good-bye to all of this; -    By all delights that I shall miss,    Help me to die, O Lord.

William Noel Hodgson (published under the name Edward Melbourne), "Before Action". Hodgson was a British soldier who served in the Great War. He was killed by machine gun fire on the first day of the Somme while attacking German trenches.