'Peter de Berminghame' - The Musical



 
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Dealing with love, loyalty and life under foreign occupation, this musical celebrates the man, after whom the city was named. Peter is traded and raised a Norman, fights on Crusade, before returning to his impoverished village, [Domesday Book valuation 1 pound] to start a market place. One he builds into England's busiest - funding a dynasty of de Berminghame's that last 400 years.
Peter de Berminghame - Songbook - [505KB] Script.





'Peter de Berminghame' - The Songs


 
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Who Was 'Peter de Berminghame'


 
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1066 - The Anglo-Norman Period Begins. Listen Now | Download [2.89M] - Produced by Jamie Cryan.

Act One - The Arrival of the Normans - Download [2.89M] Produced by Jamie Cryan.

Act Two - Peter's Return - Listen Now | Download [2.79M] .

Story and Main Themes


 
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Peter de Berminghame started a Market on his manor - [valued at 1 pound - ref. Domesday Book] - and turned it into Medieval England's busiest market place. Today his family lie, entombed in stone, in St. Martins Church, Birmingham. This musical commemorates his life and legacy!

What I have done is to take real people from history and place them into a story that tries to incorporate events of the era to create a possible tale of Peter's life. Some fact maybe inacurrate due to a lack of understanding and some dates have been manipulated for artisitic purposes. But it is meant to be a story of inspiration, rather than a literal historical account.

We begin with the passing of Halleys Comet -1066. A year important as it also saw the last successful invasion of England, by William the Conqueror. I have painted England as a still very Germanic Anglo-Saxon, English speaking people, with a rebellious will to rid themsevles of their French speaking rulers. The English rebels who call themselves 'Meine Blut' [German for My Blood] greet each other with a beat of their chest in a specific salute, drawing reference to the Nazi, 'Heil Hitler'. This Germanic reference attemps to define a difference between the Normans and the English, by drawing on the Saxon heritage.

Peter was not born in 1066, but it is important to set the political scene. Peter as a child is the eldest son of a drunk - William and a neglectful mother. Because he is a skilled horseman, he is asked to ride agaist Warwick, who is a French baron. William gambles on his son winning, but when he loses, he is left penniless. The Baron of Dudley, offers William a way out. He offers to raise Peter at his castle, in Dudley - near Birmingham.

This means that Peter is seperated from his family and learns to speak French. His gentrification is doulbe-edged. On the one hand he escapes poverty. But on the other, he must join the Baron and other Lords on Crusade to fight the Muslims, who have invaded the Holy Land. This takes him away from England for 5 years. During which he is bullied and eventually attacked by Warwick. After being attacked by Lord Warwick, it is assumed by all that he is dead. So when he turns up in Birmingham years later, everyone is surprised.

He returns to his home to find starvation and illness. His younger brother -Richard the Red - is seized by a need to kill the Normans, who he blames for everything. He finds his elder brother has become a Norman, speaking French and mistrusts him.

Peter is betrayed by his father