An Anatomy Of Melancholy
Music of John Dowland
Text Robert Burton, Sigmund Freud, Darian Leader
Conceived, directed & designed by Netia Jones
Countertenor Iestyn Davies
Lute Thomas Dunford
* * * * *
This show, bringing together countertenor Iestyn Davies, the lutenist Thomas Dunford and video wizard Netia Jones…is much more than just a recital
The Times
* * * *
director Netia Jones draws on film, music, and performance to examine pressing questions underpinning discourse on mental illness. The result is as elegant as it is philosophically demanding, a swirling and elegiac piece that supplies no answers, only questions. Jones is like a surgeon; with a razor-sharp scalpel she slices and dices Burton's text with clinical precision to reform it in a contemporary light
Broadway World
* * * *
a stunning journey into an Elizabethan heart of darkness
The Arts Desk
* * * *
deeply moving
The Standard
* * * *
Illuminating
The Stage
* * * *
I am swept away. Music speaks where words fail. This one-hour concert is inspirational: Jones’s clever concept—she is credited with direction, design, including video design—is all enveloping, Iestyn Davies’s countertenor soars and fills the void with crystalline (his word for Dowland’s songs) timbres, and the icing on the whole confection is Thomas Dunford playing Dowland’s compositions.
British Theatre Guide
One of the most extraordinary pieces of theatre that I have ever seen.
Londongrip