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Episode 2

Left to starve by the king, the jailed Jeremiah is kept alive by the young servant girl, who brings him food, ostensibly because she wants to help him, but she has another motive.

Songs and Lamentations , a new translation of the two biblical books Lamentations and Song of Songs by Michael Symmons Roberts . A powerful story of the horrific destruction of a once great city, and the love story of a couple who find hope and solace in each other offering two very different, but complementary, perspectives on the days leading up to the destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonian armies in 587 BC.

Set in the middle east, this poetry of violence, heat, passion and vengeance has clear resonance with the intractable cycle of violence - and the survival of love - in that same part of the world 2500 years on. The themes and wisdom of 'Song of Songs' and 'Lamentations' have never been more current or more apposite.

Jeremiah Peter Hamilton-Dyer
Rachel Gillian Kearney
Pashur Russell Dixon
Nathan Tom Ferguson
Zedekiah David Seddon
Thomas Henry Devas
Samuel Patrick Lally
Ana Deborah McAndrew

Directed in Salford by Susan Roberts

2. Although left to starve by the King, the jailed Jeremiah is kept alive by the young servant girl from the palace, who brings him food, ostensibly because she wants to help him. But she has another motive.

She is meeting a man nearby, one of the King's own ministers. Love between a minister and a servant is impossible. Nonetheless they flirt and entice each other, in the poetry of the Song of Songs.

Day by day, pressure mounts on the King. The people want revolution against the Babylonians, but Jeremiah the prophet's warnings are unsettling him.

The impossible love of the couple in Song of Songs becomes an elegy for the city

And its people.

58 minutes

Last on

Sat 30 Jun 2012 21:00

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Credits

Role Contributor
Jeremiah Peter Hamilton-Dyer
Rachel Gillian Kearney
Pashur Russell Dixon
Zedekiah David Seddon
Thomas Henry Devas
Ana Deborah McAndrew
Writer Michael Symmons Roberts
Director Susan Roberts
Producer Susan Roberts

Broadcasts

  • Sun 24 Jun 2012 15:00
  • Sat 30 Jun 2012 21:00

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