The Food of Love

In The Food of Love, exquisite orchestral and choral music from stage and screen will bring Shakespeare’s extraordinary words to life, with famous excerpts from his plays and entertaining theatrical anecdotes! This will be an evening to remember, narrated by Sir Derek Jacobi and Frances Barber, with musical highlights from the glittering scores of Craig Armstrong (Romeo + Juliet), Stephen Warbeck (Shakespeare in Love), William Walton (Henry V), Nigel Hess (Royal Shakespeare Company productions), Henry Purcell, Roger Quilter and Ralph Vaughan Williams.

We are very grateful to Frances Barber who will now join Sir Derek Jacobi for The Food of Love concert, on 16 April at Southbank Centre’s Royal Festival Hall. Frances Barber replaces Samantha Bond, who unfortunately has had to withdraw from this event.

Frances Barber is an award winning actress whose work has combined leading roles in theatre, film & TV in the UK. Seasons at The RSC, The National & London's West End have seen her play a variety of parts in Shaw, Chekov (Sonya in Uncle Vanya, for which she received her second Olivier Nomination and a TMA award for Best Actress) Tennessee Williams, Shakespeare & many contemporary playwrights. 

One of the world’s best-known actors, double Olivier Award winner Sir Derek Jacobi has played many of Shakespeare’s seminal characters on stage during his illustrious career, including Hamlet, Macbeth, Lear, Prospero and Richard III. His numerous screen appearances range from Murder on the Orient Express to the popular series Last Tango in Halifax.

HESS The entry to the Senate from Julius Caesar

WALTON Fanfare from Hamlet

QUILTER Evening in the forest from As You Like It

HESS Christening & Coronation from Henry VIII;

The statue from The Winter's Tale;

Sigh no more from Much Ado About Nothing;

Suite from The Comedy of Errors

WALTON Soliloquy from Hamlet;

Suite from Henry V

Interval

DOYLE Henry V: Non Nobis, Domine

ARMSTRONG Balcony scene from Romeo & Juliet

HESS Evening hymn from Love's Labour's Lost

PURCELL Overture, Timon of Athens

HESS Overture, Much Ado About Nothing

VAUGHAN WILLIAMS The cloud-capp'd towers from The Tempest

HESS Willow song from Othello

HESS The wind and the rain from Twelfth Night

WARBECK The end from Shakespeare in Love