The story of the International Brigades, the foreign volunteers who fought against the forces of fascism in the Spanish Civil War , is one of the more noble, if tragic chapters of that terrible conflict.
The majority of these volunteers , from a variety of national backgrounds including the UK,were motivated by a simple spirit of solidarity, and the belief that Franco’s military uprising against the democratically-elected Spanish Popular Front government, backed as it was by Mussolini and Hitler, represented a defining ideological battleground that would define the future of Europe.
While David Cameron set out to drive a coach and horses through any basic concept of the common good by predicating national sovereignty on the basis of the deregulation of the City, I took some friends to see Goodbye Barcelona, a musical based around the character of Sam young Jewish kid from east London who joins the International Brigades after fighting against Mosley’s black shirts in Cable Street. And what a moving and worthwhile evening it proved.
The small studio of the Arcola Theatre in north-east London, which allows you to drink your wine as you watch, provides a perfect intimate setting for engagement with a story-line that takes our imagination across some of the great landmarks of the Spanish Civil War- Orwell’s Barcelona, Brunete, Jarama, the Ebro and then finally Franco’s victory-in the steps of Sam and his comrades in arms. Along the way, Sam falls in love with a young Spaniard called Pilar, while his beloved young widowed mother (the best sung and acted role by Lucy Bradshaw), follows her own romantic and ideological journey in the company of a fugitive anarchist after volunteering as a nurse.
The two love affairs are genuinely touching. And there are some stirring collective moments as when the cast sing lines from the The Internationale , and the Basque communist firebrand La Pasionaria delivers a stage version of her famous ‘No pasaran’ speech – Evita-style. , I thought. Thankfully neither the songs nor the linking script descend into Lloyd-Webber pastiche nor agitprop. This intelligent musical (music and lyrics by KS Lewkowicz, book by Judith Johnson ) does pay more than lip service to the ideological complexities and military deficiencies that turned the experience many volunteers like Sam had of Spain into a tragedy. Only on two key point does book-writer Johnson fail us. Untouched are the the question of whether International Brigades presence prolonged a Civil War without in the end contributing to saving the Republic, and whether La Pasionaria –played sympathetically here- was really a bloody fanatic responsible for the deaths in vain of thousands of Spaniards and foreigners.
Nevertheless Sam’s political gullibility is constantly teased by a fellow-soldier- a veteran of the First World war- who has seen enough of the brutality of human conflict already to idealise it. One of several excellent songs skilfully mocks the various divisions of the left that Orwell so brilliantly depicts in his Homage to Catalonia, while several other scenes underline how poorly equipped, and underfed were those who took up arms against Franco.
The title song , sung towards the end , is one of the best and most moving sang as it by the full cast as they bid farewell to the revolution that failed-almost as good as the Internationale, still in my view, together with Jerusalem, one of the most inspiring human hymns ever scripted.
“Arise ye workers from your slumbers, arise you prisoners of want….”- and go to the Arcola and get inspired. It’s on until December 23rd so give a friend or a loved one a Christmas treat. It’s great fringe. With some development finance , Goodbye Barcelona deserves to tour, and even return to some more permanent base in London .
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