Ralph Fitz Randal

UWE Regional History Centre: The Ballad of Johny Walford

Commissioned by the University of the West of England's Regional History Centre, and part of the 'Being Human: Festival of the Humanities', 'The Ballad of Johnny Walford' distills the essence of a collaborative and interdisciplinary site-specific performance about the execution and gibbeting (exhibiting felon's bodies in iron cages at the scene of their crimes) of John Walford, for the murder of his wife Jane, in 1789.

Director of UWE Regional History Centre, Professor Steve Poole, worked with poet Ralph Hoyte and artist Michael Fairfax to create a public performance involving poetry, sculpture, music, and sound installation. This event gets to the very heart of what it is to ‘be human’ in extraordinary circumstances.

Filmmaker: Nathan Hughes

beinghumanfestival.org/event/romancing-gibbet/