In Detail

"His capacity to astonish and move us profoundly remains undiminished. In a soulless world, he confronts us repeatedly with our darkest fears but also our most joyful aspirations. And in the end, that is why we love him.

This film was first broadcast as a 'South Bank Show' on Easter Sunday, 1981. It had originally been offered to the BBC, but rejected by the then Assistant Head of Music & Arts on the grounds that a long film about Walton "would be of little interest to the general public". The composer of ‘Belshazzar’s Feast’, ‘Crown Imperial’, ‘Concertos for Cello, Viola & Violin’, ‘Façade’, film scores, especially the three great Shakespeare films of Laurence Olivier, the opera ‘Troilus and Cressida’… this Italia prize-winning film includes the only full-length interview ever recorded with Walton.

Filmed at his home on Ischia and in Oxford, London and Oldham, it includes contributions from Olivier, Sacheverell Sitwell and Lady Susana Walton. Specially performed extracts of his music are conducted by Simon Rattle in his first substantial contribution to television when he was in his early 20s, with Simon Preston, Julian Bream, Yvonne Kenny, Yehudi Menuhin, Iona Brown, John Shirley-Quirk, Elgar Howarth and Ralph Kirshbaum, the Philharmonia Orchestra, the Grimethorpe Colliery Band, Christ Church Cathedral Choir, Oxford & even Los Paraguayos!"

- Tony Palmer

Tickets £8
10th May Day Pass (5 Films): £25 Only - applied automatically when you book all 5 films.