Thursday, June 27, 2019

The soundtrack of a lost folk horror classic



Having inadvertently posted a video for the second time this week, I have decided to do it more often. After all, most of my readers now weren't born when I started blogging.

So here are the children of The Italia Conti Academy of Theatre Arts in 1958, performing part of Carl Orff's Music for Children.

Surely this is the soundtrack from a lost folk horror classic? Certainly. it is the most frightening recording I know.

I wrote a bit more about it when it first appeared on this blog in 2014.

As I observed then, these days the Italia Conti specialises in training children for parts in EastEnders.

I am reminded of Alan Bennett's experience of auditioning boys for 40 Years On:
Many belong to a species of stage boy, only related to childhood by their small size. All the other attributes of boyhood - youth, gaiety, innocence - have long since gone. Squat creatures, seemingly weaned on Woodbines, they are the boys who have been in Oliver! Lionel Bart has cut a swathe through the nation's youth like the 1914-18 war. They are the new Lost Generation.

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