CONFESSIONAL: A DARKER TALE

The Vendéens are very proud of their history, which records some dark and bloody events. Before the French Revolution, the region now called the Vendée did not exist. The ancient provinces, Anjou and Poitou, were renamed by the prosaic new order who wanted to destroy all references to the ancien régime.

The ancient ruined castle of Tiffauges, once an impregnable medieval stronghold, inspired this play. Now, groups of schoolchildren chatter among its fallen stones, but its great keep has a sinister reputation. It is known everywhere as Bluebeard’s Castle and its history gave me the idea for the audio drama, 'Confessional', about a fifteenth century super-hero turned child-murderer: the infamous Baron Gilles de Rais. I wondered how the historic figure of a medieval paedophile, monstrous, mad and doomed to die at the stake, came to be associated in the minds of the Vendéens with a gruesome folk tale about a wife-murderer who perished in a barrel full of spikes.

The music for this play was composed and performed by David Simpson. It is sombre and menacing. Listen.