Rise like Lions after slumber
In unvanquishable number,
Shake your chains to earth like dew
Which in sleep had fallen on you-
Ye are many – they are few.”

The Manchester International Festival is held every two years in July. Unfortunately, it inevitably coincides with my summer holiday so although it usually includes a number of events I’d like to attend, I end up missing out. One event I’ll be sorry to miss this year is the performance of Shelley’s epic poem “The Masque of Anarchy”  by Maxine Peake.

A ballad with 38 verses, Shelley wrote the poem on 5 September 1819 when he was living in Leghorn in Italy in response to the news of the “Peterloo massacre” (also known as the Battle of Peterloo) that took place in Manchester on 16 August of that year.

As I lay asleep in Italy
There came a voice from over…