'Lighten Our Darkness: Illuminating Choral Evensong' DVD Boxset

Please buy the boxset using the dropdown menu at the bottom of this page. There are also options to support our work with larger amounts from £95 up to £30,000. Please email me if you would like more details - will@fuguestatefilms.co.uk

Lighten Our Darkness, a 5-hour multi-part documentary, explores why the timeless service of choral evensong continues to be the mainstay of daily worship in so many cathedrals and churches in the UK and beyond. We explore how a liturgy whose origins long pre-date its first recent manifestation in 1662 still has a role in 21st century life, and look at the vast array of words and music which may be included on any one day. Ultimately our film seeks to illuminate the continuing importance of this service.

Locations include cathedrals (Salisbury, Winchester, Truro, St Patrick's, Dublin, Guildford, Chester and Blackburn); colleges and schools (New College, Oxford, Trinity and St John's Cambridge, Birmingham University, Rugby School, Methodist College Belfast), as well as establishments in Grantham, Bath, Sheffield, Lincoln, Bolton Abbey and elsewhere. Filming with the Roden Girl Choristers in Groningen and the Boys' Choir of St Mark's School of Texas, Dallas, gives the project an international dimension. The huge amount of music in the film includes works by Tallis, Byrd, Gibbons, Purcell, Stainer, Parry, Stanford, Noble, Howells, Britten, Rutter and Chilcott, as well as contemporary compositions by Sietze de Vries, Hugh Morris, Philip Stopford, Joanna Forbes L'Estrange, Alexander L'Estrange and others.

The film is narrated by Zeb Soanes and Interviewees and commentators include John Rutter, Katherine Dienes-Williams, Bob Chilcott, David Hill, Jeremy Begbie, Joanna Forbes L'Estrange, Andrew Nethsingha, Elizabeth Stratford, Christopher Gray and many others.