Carol Ann Duffy is to lead a host of performers in a special BBC Radio 4 programme marking the 200th anniversary of the Peterloo Massacre.
A Poet Laureate’s Peterloo, presented by Barnsley poet Ian McMillan, will feature the outgoing Poet Laureate together with brand new commissions from the Mercury nominated singer-songwriter Kathryn Williams, the poets Clare Shaw and Mark Pajak, and from Duffy herself.
Each will offer 21st century responses to the events of August 16th 1819 in Manchester, when a peaceful pro-democracy rally, made up of thousands of men, women and children, was attacked by an armed cavalry. Eighteen people were killed, and hundreds injured.
The programme will be recorded on July 30th at Friends Meeting House in Manchester, where you can still see a wall that witnessed the massacre.
Also appearing will be Robert Poole, Professor of History at the University of Central Lancashire and author of ‘Peterloo’.
