Benjamin Britten: Peace and Conflict

This drama documentary for cinema explores the pacifism that was such a powerful influence on composer Benjamin Britten?s life and work. The story begins in 1929 at Gresham?s School in Norfolk, England. The brilliant seventeen year old Alex Lawther, playing the schoolboy Ben Britten and a group of fine young professional actors take us into a world which still resonates with the horrors of the First World War, where pupils are encouraged to address social and political issues and Benjamin Britten?s hatred of all things militaristic is forged. Gresham?s inspirational head of history, Simon Kinder explains that many of the boys in 1929 became communists, in part as a reaction to the threat of fascism. We see the young Donald Maclean, later to attain notoriety as one of the Cambridge spies, reading aloud from his strongly left wing short story.