Derek Jarman's BLUE Re-Imagined In A Special Live Performance At The Southbank Centre

Artist and filmmaker Derek Jarman's landmark final film Blue, a reflection on life, love and loss, is given a live performance to mark World Aids Day at the Southbank Centre's Queen Elizabeth Hall.

British director Neil Bartlett and actor Russell Tovey have worked together to create a special live performance of Blue (1993) originally created by the leading British artist and filmmaker Derek Jarman.  

Blue Now features a stellar line up including Travis Alabanza, Jay Bernard and Joelle Taylor, who together deliver Jarman's powerful words (previously voiced by Tilda Swinton, Nigel Terry, John Quentin and Jarman himself). 

Completed shortly before his death in 1994, Blue features a continuous single shot of the colour blue, accompanied by a kaleidoscopic soundtrack of voices and music, as Jarman reflects on his AIDS-related illness, impending death and loved ones lost to the virus.

Due to this illness, 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.'

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

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.

Live performances commissioned by WePresent by WeTransfer in association with Fuel and Basilisk Communications.

Please note, the performance on Sunday 1 December at 7.30pm is British sign language interpreted (BSL).

Date: Sunday 1 Dec 2024, 7.30pm- Queen Elizabeth Hall 

Tickets from £20

For ages 14+

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