Blue Now: A striking live performance of Derek Jarman’s final film

A remarkable film which captured the devastation of AIDS has been recreated into a live performance in a moving tribute to its origional creator and his lost generation.

Blue, released in 1993, was British artist and filmmaker Derek Jarman’s final feature film, completed shortly before his death in 1994.

Featuring a continuous single shot of the colour blue, the film is a searing collection of diary excerpts in which Mr Jarman reflects on the illness that took his friends, sight, and eventually his life.

As he battled with AIDS Mr Jarman became partially blind – his vision was often interrupted by shades of blue light. In the film, he describes blue as the colour that, “transcends the solemn geography of human limits”.

Thirty one years after it was made, British director Neil Bartlett and actor Russell Tovey have worked together to create a live performance of the film with Travis Alabanza, Jay Bernard, Joelle Taylor, Russell Tovey, Simon Fisher Turner and Lucy Railton.

Blue Now will be performed in the Southbank Centre’s Queen Elizabeth Hall on December 1.

Simon Fisher Turner, who created the original soundtrack, performs a new score, created in collaboration with cellist and composer Lucy Railton.

Directed by Bartlett, Blue Now’s cast includes Travis Alabanza, Jay Bernard and Joelle Taylor, who together deliver Mr Jarman’s powerful words.

Blue Now is a unique opportunity to reflect on the impact of the British AIDS epidemic and the importance of creating space for compassion, rage and poetry in the face of prejudice and oppression.

To find out more, visit: https://www.southbankcentre.co.uk/whats-on/blue-now/

Pictured top: Blue Now (Picture: Courtesy of Basilisk Communications)