Book Music & Lyrics : Mike Read
In 43AD The Romans came and changed our way of life. The subjugated Britons existed in an uneasy peace. When the Romans started to play hard ball the Britons turned. They wanted their country back. A British heroine arose and became a symbol of the fight for justice, independence and freedom.
Her name was BOUDICA and she razed five Roman towns to the ground; resounding victories that shook the very walls of Rome and Emperor Nero himself.
“I am descended from mighty men! But I am not fighting for my kingdom and wealth now. I am fighting as an ordinary person for my lost freedom, my bruised body, and my outraged daughters.”
The musical focuses on Tragedy and Comedy. Passion and Humour. Love and Hate. It is Contemporaneous with Anachronistic threads.
We hear and witness the struggle for supremacy through the eyes of the Britons and The Romans, experience the Roman Governor, Gaius Suetonius Paulinus and Flavius the fastidious roman tailor. Edmund the Briton whose heart tells him to fight for his country has to contend with his wife Edith who believes he should have opted for the quiet life. The rebel leader Boudica is adored by her right hand man Chad, but her mind is on driving the Romans from Celtic Britain. The Narrator, Praeco, moves the plot along with observational humour and commentary. And it all begins with two farmers ploughing a field in the 2020s.
BOUDICA and the mighty BRITONS razed the first three towns to the ground and almost certainly the other two.
~ CAMULODUNUM (Colchester)
~ LONDINIUM (London)
~ VARULAMIUM (St Albans)
~ AD PONTES (Staines)
~ CALLEVA ATREBATUM (Silchester)
We are currently in pre-production. Anyone requiring more information please click this email address, info@boudicathemusical.com, and we will get back to you.
Mike Read went on his first archaeological digs from the age of eight.
On leaving home he donated some 10,000 artefacts to his local museum, including Neolithic & Palaeolithic implements, Roman pottery and other material. he was, at one time, Patron of the Junior Archaeological Society in York and presented TV programmes from there. He has also broadcast from Fishbourne Roman Palace.
His book A Thousand Years of Caversham Park and it’s People was the result a year’s research, geophysics and metal detecting.
Mike lives by the Roman Road Stane Street and wrote the script and songs for Boudica during 2025, often sitting with a cup of tea across the fields from his home at Bignor Roman Villa.
