Gabriel

Gabriel

by SamuelAdamson (Author)

Synopsis

This is noisily Protestant England - the England of William and Mary's Glorious Revolution at the end of a century of civil strife. This is London in the 1690s, the monster city tamed into awe by our only Orpheus: Henry Purcell. Monarchs, princes, prostitutes, wigmakers, composers, tapsters, musicians, transvestites and watermen jostle for attention in the teeming, unruly world of late seventeenth-century London, where enthralling stories both real and imagined merge and intersect. Samuel Adamson's Gabriel premiered at Shakespeare's Globe, London, in July 2013 with Alison Balsom, one of the world's finest trumpeters, performing the music of Purcell and Handel. Every day three trumpet calls from the theatres on the Bankside, then songs would float over the thatch and roll across the water and make my work sweet.

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More Information

Format: Paperback
Pages: 96
Edition: Main
Publisher: Faber & Faber
Published: 18 Jul 2013

ISBN 10: 0571309518
ISBN 13: 9780571309511

Media Reviews
Gabriel leaves you giddy with pleasure and fully smitten with the work of Henry Purcell. Daily Telegraph A piece that gloriously defies definition. It can best be described as a series of short plays by Samuel Adamson celebrating the rackety London of the 1690s, the genius of Henry Purcell, and the limitless potential of the solo trumpet, here played by Alison Balsom, who inspired the whole enterprise. It makes for one of the most enjoyable evenings I've spent at the Globe. It is an exceptional evening unified by Dominic Dromgoole's production, which marries the bawdy and the beautiful, and provides, in the solemn funeral procession for Queen Mary that snakes through the auditorium, an unforgettable image of grief Guardian [An] unclassifiable delight... A delectable departure for the Globe. Independent
Author Bio
Samuel Adamson's plays include: Some Kind of Bliss (Trafalgar Studios), All About My Mother (from Almodovar; Old Vic), Fish and Company (Soho Theatre/National Youth Theatre), Southwark Fair (National Theatre), Drink, Dance, Laugh and Lie (Bush Theatre/Channel 4), Grace Note (Peter Hall Company/Old Vic), Clocks and Whistles (Bush Theatre) and contributions to the 24 Hour Plays (Old Vic), A Chain Play (Almeida Theatre) and Urban Scrawl (TheatreVoice/Theatre 503). Adaptations include: Ibsen's Pillars of the Community and Mrs Affleck, from Ibsen's Little Eyolf, (both at the National Theatre) A Doll's House (Southwark Playhouse); Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard (Oxford Stage Company/Riverside Studios) and Three Sisters (OSC/Whitehall Theatre); Schnitzler's Professor Bernhardi (Dumbfounded Theatre/Arcola Theatre/Radio 3) and Bernhard Studlar's Vienna Dreaming (National Theatre Studio). Radio includes: Tomorrow Week (Radio 3). Film includes Running for River (Directional Studios/Krug). He was Pearson Writer in Residence at the Bush in 1997-8.