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      REV HAMMER’S FREEBORN JOHN LIVE DVD & AUDIO CD DOUBLE PACKA star studded cast of English Folk Royalty perform the world’s first historical folk opera, live at Levellers’ Beautiful Days festival in front of thousands, including the English Civil War society Starring:Rev Hammer as ‘Freeborn’ John Lilburne, Maddy Prior as Elizabeth Lilburne, Justin Sullivan (New Model Army) as Nehemiah Warton, Rory McLeod as Vox Populi, Romney Getty as Mary Overton, plus Phil Johnstone as Will o’The People and The Levellers as...themselves.Includes bonus track “Rumour and Rapture” not featured on the original 1996 studio album English history has provided us with no more dramatic or colourful a character than England's first radical, ‘Freeborn’ John Lilburne, unsung hero of the English Civil War. Lilburne's unflagging opposition to arbitrary authority was a lifelong vocation, and he became known by the people of England as "Freeborn John". Struggles for freedom of speech, freedom of the press, of conscience and many other 'liberties' and 'freedoms' we now take for granted resulted in his being whipped and pilloried by the King's Star Chamber, imprisoned by Parliament, banished into exile and twice put on trial for his life by Oliver Cromwell. Brought to life in an astonishingly vivid and tangible way by the inimitable Rev Hammer, Freeborn John tells the story of this true English people’s hero in an exiting, entertaining and hugely informative way. Blending music styles from medieval plainsong to rock, this album transcends genres and musical pigeonholes. Pop it on your DVD (or CD) player, sit back and before long it begins to all make sense. The original studio album of Freeborn John was completed (and released on Cooking Vinyl) in 1996. Starring in excess of 50 musicians and singers, it was thought highly unlikely that it would ever be performed live. In the spring of 2006, Levellers’ Beautiful Days Festival approached Rev Hammer with a commission to perform the whole album live on its own stage at the August 2005 festival. It was a huge challenge to reassemble the cast, reproduce the studio album for live performance and to deliver the project within any semblance of ‘the budget’. At 8.30 on the opening night of the festival, musicians, signers, the English Civil War Society and a few thousand festivals goers gathered on a green hill in the grounds of Escot House, Devon. The rest as they say is history; British History. Some of it over 300 years old. “Fantastic…classic songs…tremendously performed to a large crowd sat before the Freeborn Stage even including a mini battle from the English Civil War Society” Efestivals “A unique and inspiring piece of musical theatre” Virtualfestivals.com    
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