Artistic response to Gaia
Lizzie is a playwright, screenwriter and songwriter.
Lizzie’s first play Intemperance (Liverpool Everyman, 2007) was awarded 5 stars by The Guardian and shortlisted for the Meyer-Whitworth Award. She co-wrote Unprotected, winner of the Amnesty International Award for Freedom of Expression (Everyman/Traverse Edinburgh, 2006). The Swallowing Dark (Liverpool Playhouse Studio/Theatre503 2011, Inis Nua Theatre Philadelphia USA 2017) was shortlisted for the Susan Smith Blackburn Award. Narvik (Box of Tricks UK Tour 2017, Norwegian Tour Autumn 2019) won Best New Play in the UK Theatre Awards 2017. Other recent work includes plays with songs The Sum (Everyman 2017), The People Are Singing (Manchester Royal Exchange 2017), The Snow Dragons (National Theatre 2017) and To Have to Shoot Irishmen (UK tour 2018). She has also written extensively for BBC radio, with new series Daphne to be broadcast in summer 2019.
Below are lyrics to her song, Finest Hour in response to Gaia, a huge, seven-metre replica of the earth which was installed at Liverpool Cathedral for Liverpool River Festival. Recording to follow.
Finest Hour – lyrics by Lizzie Nunnery
Were you there with me in my majesty
At the barricades, on the record sleeve
I was blessed proof, you were born to believe
I was living art, you were on your knees
Chorus
Don’t pick me out in the crowd
Don’t call my name out loud
Don’t throw your light on me, you’ll see
It’s not my finest hour
And if I made you laugh, hold on to that
If I was gentle then, if I was elegant
Keep the photographs, keep the magazine scraps
Piece me back together again
Chorus
But in the right shade
With the dusk behind me
I’m all ablaze
I’m all I might be
On the rolling stage
When the daylight finds me I fade
I’ll climb the Anglican tower
Call over rooftop and spire
I’m not the one you admire
It’s not my finest hour
A beautiful youth is dancing in the dark
A beautiful youth is dancing in the dark
My beautiful youth is dancing in the dark with me