Tom Higgins - Elgar: The Fringes of the Fleet (2014)

Elgar’s The Fringes of the Fleet – a patriotic song-cycle with words by the writer Rudyard Kipling – was the morale-raising headline act in variety theatres up and down the country, as World War One reached its climax in 1917. Premiered on 11 June 1917 at the London Coliseum, and conducted throughout its run by Elgar himself, the work was seen in a staging by four baritones appearing in fishermen’s costumes outside a pub. The four initial songs – ‘The Lowestoft Boat’, ‘Fate’s Discourtesy’, ‘Submarines’ and ‘The Sweepers’ – proved so popular that two weeks after the premiere, Elgar added a fifth, unaccompanied song, ‘Inside the Bar‘, with words by Sir Gilbert Parker.

The work immediately went on tour to theatres and music halls up and down the country – always with Elgar, battling illness, at the helm. The overwhelming success of The Fringes of the Fleet wherever it was seen throughout 1917 was only halted when Kipling, emotionally crippled by the death at the Front of his only son, decided he did not want his poetry used to glorify war, as he saw it, and – to Elgar’s dismay – forbade further performances. After a further run at London’s Palace Theatre in 1918, the work effectively disappeared.