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This project successfully funded on 7th November 2025, you can still support them with a donation.
Dreams of Peace & Freedom | One Story
London, Greater London, United Kingdom
Aim
Support to stage a series of performances of Sue Casson's Dreams of Peace & Freedom in 2026
In the 80 years since WWII we have forgotten why we have the European Convention on Human Rights. Dreams of Peace & Freedom gently and beautifully reminds us by telling its history through the words of its British ‘artisan’, David Maxwell Fyfe, a lawyer and politician who was a leading prosecutor at the Nuremberg Trials. For him, Nuremberg and Strasbourg were all one story.
It was the story of the conquest of tyranny and the establishment of human rights, democracy and the rule of law. It was the story of an awakening realisation of the need for nations to work more closely in a changing world. It was the story of the world striving to be free from war, torture, slavery, the prohibition of free thought and faith, and the fracturing of society through fear and hate.
Out of a Europe in ruins after World War II arose the dream of a new continent free from conflict and terror.
As the 80th anniversary of the Nuremberg Trials draws to a close in 2026, we need your support to stage performances around the UK to remember the values that were fought for and protect them for future generations.
WHAT PEOPLE SAY ABOUT DREAMS OF PEACE & FREEDOM
'An incredible song cycle and a really unique piece of theatre'
Kate Massey, Canon for Arts and Reconciliation, who invited us to perform at Coventry Cathedral
'Many of the words in the performance are taken directly from the speech and writing of David Maxwell Fyfe and have an immediacy that only direct experience can bring. That direct experience of the damage that war brings is no longer familiar. The messages of those who realised the need for a different way are being forgotten.'
Ian Cook, who presented our performance on the Isle of Man
'It inspired many. The audience went away moved to take what actions they can.'
Sue Johnson, co-organiser of performance in Manchester
'A love letter to the values of peace, freedom and remembrance…beautiful vocals…Extraordinary'
Laura Pollock, The National
'This show was brilliant, the singing was blissful, the film and narration excellent, I learned a lot which I will not forget. I highly recommend it as a marvellously constructed history of the European Convention of Human Rights'
Audience Review, Tessa Thomas-Pyne
'This was a wonderful finale to a great Fringe for me. Through an incredibly crafted blend of imagery, beautiful song and poetry alongside telling the story of David Maxwell Fyfe and his loving wife, I was able to journey in time from the past and into futures.'
Audience Review, Kirsten
'The show is a deeply moving song cycle written by Sue Casson and beautifully performed by Sue and David's great-grandchildren Lily and Robert Blackmore. It is both a tribute to the best of humanity, a remembrance of the worst of humanity and a celebration of David's unwavering vision and commitment to human rights, democracy and the rule of law.'
Charlie McMillan, the director of Human Rights Consortium Scotland
'Maxwell Fyfe’s reflections remind us that social realities change, but what must remain constant is the right to dignity and respect for all. It seems that Maxwell Fyfe’s reminder is necessary as we have seen non-peaceful attacks on migrants and other racialised groups increasing, as evidenced in the last few days across Scotland, and the rights to peace and freedom of many other people are increasingly marginalised.'
Angela O’Hagan, the Chair of the Scottish Human Rights Commission Blog
In 2025 for ECHR75 we staged a yearlong celebration in support of the European Convention on Human Rights and in protest against those wanting to withdraw from it with our project, Songs of the People. It was recognised with our performances in an Early Day Motion in Parliament.
Beginning at the Edinburgh Fringe, we toured the UK including Dornoch, Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle, Cambridge, Coventry and London. Songs of the People continues in 2026 with One Story performances so far in Oxford and on the Isle of Man but we need your support to persevere with this important work.
Thank you for all the tremendous work with your song cycle to remember and celebrate David Maxwell Fyfe's fantastic work
Angus Macdonald, Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe
ABOUT THE SHOW
This beautiful song cycle offers a new way to view the Convention telling how the seeds of ECHR grew up in the wasteland of the evidence of the Nuremberg War Crimes Trials. It is a living commemoration of a living law, firmly rooted in humanity. David's personal papers, Sue Casson’s music and archive film blend in this powerful celebration of the Convention's protections.
The show was premiered in 2014 as part of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. Since then, it has been performed in other landscapes of David's story, including; at the Palace of Westminster, The Palace of Justice Nuremberg (where the Trials took place), Merchants Hall with his school, George Watson's College, Holywell Music Room in Oxford (where he was educated) as well as museums, theatres and lecture halls around the UK.
'The most incredibly stimulating piece of history that most people don't know.’
Helena Kennedy KC
WHO WE ARE
We are a professional theatre company featuring a new generation of David Maxwell Fyfe's family, which is why we have chosen to tell his important story in a show. Our company English Cabaret has been presenting telling ideas in story and song as a platform for the original work of Tom Blackmore and Sue Casson for over 20 years.
‘A wonderful and meaningful performance. Music and art capture the spirit of universal human rights’
Francesca Klug OBE, writer and academic
WHAT YOU WILL SUPPORT
The staging of a series of performances of Sue Casson's Dreams of Peace & Freedom in 2026.
Maxwell Fyfe drafted a preamble to the Convention which was not used but is kept on record at the Council of Europe. It ran:
Now the Parties, re-affirm their profound belief in these Fundamental Freedoms, the foundation of justice and peace in the world and are best maintained by political democracy, common understanding and observance of Human Rights on which they depend.
This is our One Story. After the war it was necessary to restate the universal and inalienable freedoms which had been corroded by years of war and barbarism. Those freedoms acted as the foundation for justice, as gropingly demonstrated at Nuremberg and the quest for peace, which means so much more than the absence of war. Peace and justice are secured by human rights, democracy and the rule of law (the rule book that expresses the common understanding between sovereign nations.)
Today again the fundamental freedoms are being discarded and so justice and peace are eroded as attempts are made to dismantle the institutions established to protect democracy, human rights the rule of law. We need your support to keep this story alive through Dreams of Peace & Freedom.
'Sublime...A magnificent work about freedom, democracy, liberty... it generates a whole panoply of different responses - it's such a beautiful tapestry.'
MusicalTalk
ABOUT SONGS OF THE PEOPLE
Our storyteller David was inspired by poetry and song which imbue his private and public writings. For him the landscape was set alive with imagination. So are we. David’s grandson Tom Blackmore and composer Sue Casson have woven David’s words with Casson’s settings of the writings that inspired him to create her song cycle Dreams of Peace & Freedom. We echo a quotation by Andrew Fletcher of Saltoun that David often employed:
'Let me write the songs of the people and I care not who makes their laws'
Andrew Fletcher
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Funding method
Keep what you raise – this project will receive all pledges made