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The Angel

When I was at school I studied Milton's 'Paradise Lost' as part of my English Literature course. When I was 17 I wrote a modern free verse version of the same story which was something of an epic as well. It took a long time to write and I was fortunate enough to be at the kind of school where I was allowed to skip lessons and carry on with the writing so long as I was at the premises. It filled a school exercise book and was in several 'chapters' some of which were short; one was only about 6 lines, and others went on for pages. Unfortunately I no longer have a copy.

About 12 years later I joined a church amateur dramatic group who were looking for royalty free plays and entertainments to perform. At the time I was revisiting the fallen angel theme and was also reading Tolkien avariciously. Not being particularly religious I did however produce a series of songs with a common theme and I edited them together with some narrative and stage directions and "The Painting Box" was born. Rehearsals began with the church choir, a school choir and various friends and relations. Unfortunately time was against us and it proved impossible to stage the whole production on the due dates. So a compromise was reached and I rewrote some parts and we presented some of the songs with a small chorus and some actors.

In this new video age I thought I would revive the original Painting Box with this new medium -- I have already posted Nosferatu, The Un-one, Holocaust and the Seers Song -- all in the wrong order! So at last this is the intro -- "The Angel".

It is not an easy song to perform solo so please forgive the odd mistake!

I will try to record some more in the next few weeks.

"From the artist we gained both beauty and horror - from the poet we have gained both joy and sadness -- from the giant coagulum of life we have many colours: The Painting Box" BCR 1987

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Comment by MrRandomWritings (Backwater Bri) on March 21, 2011 at 12:07pm: Thanks for your comments all. I will be working on the rest of the production - the feedback I am getting here and on YT is giving me a fresh buzz about this project. @ Belinda - the original version was lost, as I said in the description, so this is actually the 1987 revisit although some of the ideas are there

Comment by ProfWaldo on March 21, 2011 at 10:59am: ...whoops...Brian.

Comment by ProfWaldo on March 21, 2011 at 10:58am: Wow look Bryan, not a single smart-a remark thru my whole comment. I'm not feeling well today, sorry.

Comment by ProfWaldo on March 21, 2011 at 10:55am: What he said, plus... Holy Schmazolie Bryan ! What an excellent production, I mean holy crap man, this is Fantastic.

The video, everything, just floors me. Me thinks you've been holding out on us.

Creative Genius of the highest order. WoW.

Comment by Henry Strat-o-varius Lowman on March 20, 2011 at 4:24pm: A masterstroke of genius, some of your best work yet visually, musically and conceptually. I reread Paradise Lost two years ago, and it was a mind blowing experience. I can't believe how I missed the "trippy" aspects when I originally read it in college! I'm STILL working through it in my head! CHEERS for posting!

Comment by bemuzic on March 20, 2011 at 9:41am: impressive!! and amazing that you wrote all that aged 17.....and I like the sound of your school!!