Four actors will play thirteen historical characters in a musical theatre presentation of the rags-to-riches-to-rags career of the polymath and humanitarian Stamford Raffles in Act-IV’s Raffles—One Heart and Mind.
Stamford Raffles abolished slavery throughout the Far East, made numerous scientific discoveries and created London Zoo.
Founder member of Act-IV Richard Cleghorn-Brown says that as far as is possible in a short, one act-play, the events portrayed are historically accurate.
“There is both pathos and humour. The ten brief but orchestrated musical numbers which drive forward the narrative are new and original.”
Some 200 years after Raffles’s death, “it’s a manifest disgrace that so few people have heard of him in his country of birth.
“But then, was not that precisely what the Honourable East India Company intended when they destroyed him?
“The bottom line was that his ideas were just too far ahead of his time for him to be allowed to implement them unchallenged.
“In their eyes,” says Cleghorn-Brown, “Raffles was dangerous. Far too dangerous to the established status quo to be allowed a free rein. Which is ironic, of course, since the code by which this unsung hero lived is today seen to be delivering unprecedented prosperity to the peoples of the communities he founded during his brief but hyper-creative tussle with man’s inhumanity to man.
“The powers-that-be in the East India Company found it much safer, therefore, to side with the conspirators who wanted to bring down the upstart Raffles before his ideas could spread further.”
Raffles—One Heart and Mind will be performed at Underground Venues on Saturday (13 July) at 12:45PM, Sunday (14 July) at 7:15PM and Tuesday until Thursday, 16 to 18 July at 2:45PM.