The Pit Orchestra - Battleship Potemkin Live Score

** The date of the event has changed, from 6th Dec to 13th Dec**

We will revive one of our landmark works this December with a special film-with-live-orchestra performance in celebration of the centenary of what is considered one of the greatest films ever created, Battleship Potemkin.

For one night only on 13th December, Plymouth University’s The House performing arts centre will journey audiences to a Russian Imperial Navy battleship on the Black Sea when a mutinous uprising by the ship's crew against their ruthless officers, sparked by spoiled meat, becomes a violent clash and one of the most famous closing scenes in cinema history.

The Pit Orchestra accompanies Sergei Eisenstein’s legendary 1925 silent film, widely considered a masterpiece in early cinema and which was inspired by the failed 1905 Russian Revolution. Its iconic climatic scene - a fictional massacre of civilians on the iconic Odessa steps in Ukraine - is widely studied for its editing and pioneering use of montage.

First commissioned and performed in 2017, the powerful soundtrack was originally composed collectively by The Pit Orchestra members under the guidance of lead composers Tom Richardson, Chris Muirhead and Chris Bailey. It has now been reimagined by Tom Richardson for the 2025 season with technical guidance from the virtuosic, internationally-renowned composer Simon Dobson.

Richardson says, “Battleship Potemkin not only represents a milestone in the grand history of cinema, as well as the shorter history of The Pit Orchestra, it is also a potent symbol of revolution and resistance to established authority and oppression; a position that lies at the heart of The Pit Orchestra’s ethos. We want to honour the film’s legacy, the anti-establishment spirit of Russia's post-revolution music scene, the geo-political moment in which the centenary is occurring, and our own code of DIY collective action.”

We have invited the wonderful Ukrainian Singers of Plymouth, a grassroots choir of Ukrainians displaced by Russia’s war, to share the stage for the evening. For them our event is the opportunity to SPEAK on behalf of all those who were silenced, displaced, persecuted, and tortured by Russian and Soviet tyranny. Their voices invite us to look critically at the heritage of this film beyond its artistic value. By joining us they do not endorse the film, but stand as living proof that the art and rich history of the people helps them to survive, resist, and continue to tell their own real stories.

19:30 - Doors

20:00 - The Ukrainian Singers of Plymouth

21:00 - Battleship Potemkin

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