FULL The Stalls of Barchester Movie BBC Norwich 1971

Information on the Performance

• Work Title: The Stalls of Barchester  
• Composer: various  
• Libretto: Lawrence Gordon Clark, based on "The Stalls of Barchester Cathedral" by M. R. James Written by  
• Venue & Opera Company: Norwich Cathedral, England  
• Recorded: 1971
• Type: Movie
• Singers: Norwich Cathedral Choir
• Conductor:   
• Orchestra:
• Chorus: Norwich Cathedral Choir  
• Stage Director: Lawrence Gordon Clark  
• Costume Designer:   

Information about the Recording

• Published by: BBC  
• Date Published: 1971  
• Format: Broadcast
• Quality Video: 4 Audio:4
• Subtitles: yessubs, ensubs, gensubs  

• ADDITIONAL INFORMATION ON THIS PERFORMANCE

  Plot
  Whilst cataloguing the library of Barchester Cathedral in 1932, a scholar, Dr Black (Clive Swift) is shown a box containing a 50-year-old diary (sealed under the order of the Dean) detailing the events leading up to the mysterious death of Dr Haynes (Robert Hardy), a former Archdeacon of the cathedral. From the diary, Dr Black is able to piece together how the murder of Haynes’ agéd predecessor, a 17th-century carving on the cathedral choir stalls and the appearance of a large black cat ultimately cursed the former archdeacon. It is implied that Dr Haynes caused the death of his aged predecessor, and therefore falls under the curse of ‘Austin the Twice-Born’, a carver who made the wooden decorations (the Devil, death and a black cat) of the cathedral’s Archdeacon’s stall from oak brought from a nearby wood and from a tree known locally as ‘The Hanging Oak’.

   

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