elcome to a world where money matters. Where the gap between rich and poor has grown to a chasm. Where the moral certainties of the past are slipping away and the threat of apocalypse is never far from your mind. But this is not 2017. It is the world conjured by the 14th century poet William Langland in his surreal, hypnotic masterwork Piers Plowman.
In three original podcasts commissioned by Fair Field and produced by Natalie Steed for The Guardian, Langland’s hallucinatory dreamscape is conjured through voices, texts and sounds that bring the modern and medieval together, revealing a society of inequality, political corruption and spiritual crisis that is uncannily like our own.
Produced by Natalie Steed
Commissioned by Penned in the Margins for Fair Field
Published by The Guardian
Contributors
Beck Baker, Community & Conservation Officer, Malvern Hill Trust
Tom Chivers, writer, producer & co-artistic director, Fair Field
Jules Evans, The Art of Losing Control, Director of Policy, Centre for the History of Emotions
Sophie Fenella, Poet in Residence, Fair Field
Luke Smith, @Accumul8_N8
The Society of Strange and Ancient Instruments, Clare Salaman, Leah Stuttard, Vivien Ellis
Ross Sutherland, writer
Michael Wagg, actor
Dr Lawrence Warner, Reader in Medieval English at King’s College London
Jovan Washington, @Accumul8_N8
Note: ‘An Acre of Land’ is a version of an ancient riddle ballad popular in Yorkshire and widespread throughout England. The version sung here comes from the singing of John Hodson, recorded under the auspices of The Yorkshire Garland Group.
