Revolutionary witness

Peter Barnes

'Revolutionary Witness', televised by the BBC in 1989, is a series of four direct and intelligent monologues about the French Revolution, excavating the individual voices from the historical tide, each based on the story of a real survivor of the Revolution. In 'The Patriot' a man sells souvenirs: bones, stones and medals made from drawbridge chains are flogged as mementos of the uprising, and holy symbols of the new world order. 'The Butcher' is a man who has found it hard to understand very much, except that the Revolution was right and moral and its casualties deserve a hero's pension. 'The Preacher' has an uncompromising commitment to the revolution. 'The Amazon' is the complaint of a courtesan who led the mob wearing red silk on a black horse, and now sits mouldering in an asylum, recalling her life with unhinged lyricism.