Rupert Brooke – His Life And Poetry

Douglas Hodge gives moving readings of over 40 of Rupert Brooke’s poems in a well-researched account of his brief life written and narrated by Mike Read. Classic poems like ‘The Soldier’, ‘The Fish’, ‘The Old Vicarage, Grantchester’ and ‘Dining-Room Tea’ are combined with rare archive recordings of his close friends. Cathleen Nesbitt reads Brooke’s poem ‘Safety’ and reminisces about the times she spent with him; Katherine Abercrombie, a member of his literary circle, remembers him in a 1956 recording and his cousin, Winifred Kinsman, recalls him in a touching interview.
We hear about the main women in his complicated love life, Laurence Olivier’s older cousin, Noel, the actress Cathleen Nesbitt, Ka Cox who became pregnant by him and the Tahitian girl, Tataamata, who, it has just come to light, bore him a daughter.