Over the final days of Songs of the People's European Convention on Human Rights 75th anniversary year, English Cabaret is performing Dreams of Peace & Freedom as widely as possible. Inspired by the Jarrow marchers, who were drawing attention to the unemployment in their town, Songs of the People wish to celebrate and raise awareness of ECHR's universal protections. As ITV's political editor Robert Peston observed in an email to us 'a very ambitious project'.

The marchers began their trek to London on 5th October and as the Conservative Party announced its intention to withdraw from ECHR, we were in Manchester, performing in the iconic Friends Meeting House just outside the secure party conference area at the invitation of the Quakers. It was World Quaker Day, and this year's the theme for the global celebration of the Quaker faith was 'love thy neighbour'. The Q & A which followed the show raised the issue of widespread ignorance of the nature of ECHR, which as one Quaker expressed it, could be distilled into respect and 'kindness' to others. In the face of the dismissive three word slogans of the Reform party there was discussion as to how misunderstanding could be countered. Sue Johnson, an organiser of the performance wrote afterwards to tell us the reaction to our performance:

It inspired many. The audience went away moved to take what actions they can. I just got an email saying ‘we don’t really know what a treasure we have in ECHR and we must do all we can to bring this to everyone’s attention’

You can watch a video of our day here.

Following our performance in Manchester, we went on to Newcastle - hosted once more by Quakers in Gosforth. There the performance played to a rapt, intimate audience. No microphones, and only a widescreen TV for the accompanying imagery, they were drawn in by old-fashioned storytelling. The performance was also live-streamed to a wider audience. Stephanie Butland the organiser wrote afterwards:

Friends absolutely loved your event and we are so glad and grateful we were able to host you.

The original Jarrow march continued until 31st October and over that time English Cabaret will continue performing wherever they are invited, alongside the landscapes of David Maxwell Fyfe's story,  The anniversary of the signing is on 4th November.