As a satire on the racialist phantasies of a Celtic nobleman who seeks an impossible reunion with a black Queen, this excuse for reverie and circus can be seen as a structural analysis of a current but submerged rite in which we are all implicated. (Any explanation of the film in terms of the Aristotelian concept of art as a coherent depiction of reality would be outmoded in a society where myth is totally fragmented.) "THE' SILVER WHEEL" is that of Nemesis: yet Zeus as we know him can't deal in retributive justice. The formal Universe of the Celtic nobleman is degenerating into farce and laughter. It is a process we watch on many levels - especially as the people involved are all so ridiculous. The Wheel may sparkle; but, in fact, is motionless. They are already dead.
The Celt's progression round the Wheel (for the myth is cyclic) can be conceived of in the following way, bearing in mind that myth proper lacks a chronology in any strict sense. The Lord of the Isles, a Celtic nobleman and typical Cambridge undergraduate - who is also the swineherd on the mountainside swallowed up when Persephone was captured by Pluto, an aristocrat without a feudal estate, a shepherd without a flock (it is interesting that Gaston Bachelard has described shepherds as bearers of sinister torches, men who "transmit from age to age their lonely dreams") - is infatuated with the memory of a Sabaean Queen (the Queen of Sheba). After their 'brief encounter' she passed into a world dominated by a Nordic hierarchy who held her as a 'permanent ambassador' for the good behaviour of her father, the defeated King of Azania. The Lord of the Isles determines to follow her in the belief that such a world can be made to yield another, progressively more Elysian, reality. He enlists the services of the Supreme Advocate (a negro) to act as an intermediary in the release of Sabaea, and he in turn refers the case to the multi-racial Tribunal of Race Lords. Their ultimatum to the Nords successfully secures her release and removal to a place of exile, in contrast to the Celt's more violent approach.
At the end of reel I Sabaca and the Celt are driven away to their new location, and the various oppositions seem to have been resolved; just as mythical thought is always supposed to work from the awareness of oppositions towards their progressive mediation. However, the agreement is seriously weakened by the refusal of the Lord of Pskov, the Nordic consort, to ratify it. As a result, the decree does not place the relationship of Sabaea to Celt outside the cycle of death and rebirth. Their case will have to be taken up by the half-cast Angel of Life-in-Death, their new mentor. Angels are essentially an explosion of the divine in the human and this one has fortunately already decided upon rebellion; after the final separation of the Celt and Sabaea, he appeals directly to Apollo. Thus, through the help of Apollo and Artemis, the Celt ultimately achieves Olympian status; though, at the same time, he has to face ridicule and eventually cope with orgy. By means of a realistic documentary of unreal events, the coherence of myth gives way to the myth of coherence.
| LORD OF THE ISLES | Adrian Clark |
| THE SABAEAN QUEEN | Yeside Majekodunmi |
| THE SUPREME ADVOCATE | Moses Olugua-Oka |
| THE ANGEL OF LIFE-IN-DEATH | Ronnie Seegobin |
| THE RACE LORDS | Rajeev Dhavan, Arianna Stassinopoulos, |
| Nirmala Rajah, John Goodacre | |
| INTER-RACIAL OBSERVERS | Sumit Bhaduri & Ramesh Badkar |
| GRAND MASTER OF THE NORDIC HOSTE | Robert Fraser |
| THE NORDIC EMPRESS | Suzie Francis |
| THE LORD OF PSKOV | Simon Riggall |
| TSAREVITCH | John Fullerton |
| THE GRAND DUKE BORIS | Paul-Rene Sieveking |
| MAJOR DOMO | Mali Mustapha |
| JEWISH MINISTER | Norman Ginsburg |
| THE ARCHBISHOP | Patrick Gaffney |
| CONDUCTOR OF NORDMUSIK | Michael Waters |
| LA CHINOISE | Ella Seung |
| SABAEAN ENTOURAGE | M. K. Tong Sakiko Fukuda, |
| Dorothy Yamamoto, Tam Wolff | |
| BOATMAN | Neall Griffiths |
| GOBLINS | Leila Mollven, Peter French, Adrian Newland, |
| Richard Mullens, Nick Wells | |
| NORD LORDS-AND-LADIES | Hebe Hambling, Katriona Newland, Anne Beuse, |
| Kathy Swallow, Peter Fletcher, Charlie Pickup, | |
| Charles Lutyens, Robin Orme, Andy Monroe, | |
| Mike Baber, John Mathews, Paul Henley | |
| PHANTOM CHAUFFEUR | John Fagg |
| EXILES | Allison Bromhead, Sheila Linghorn, Rosemary, |
| Ianthë Hambling, Richard Jones | |
| MORE WORDS | Ian Mclnnes, Sam Wolff |
| MEDHIPPIES & MOURNERS | Slim Foster, Chris Martin, Anthony Gormley, |
| Phineas John, Paul Boll, Bob Vaughan, | |
| Paul Damon, Rachel Hambridge, Marcus Francis, | |
| Bill French | |
| ARCH-DRUID | Chips Hardy |
| THE GREAT WHITE MOTER | Margaret Knight |
| ZEUS | Lancelot de Giberne Sieveking |
| PHOEBUS APOLLO | Robert Frew |
| HERMES | Philip Birchall |
| ARTEMIS | Geraldine Petley |
| TURKISH NANNY | Alexander Burnett |
| BABY | Clare Biddiss |
| LORD HIGH SHERIFF OF DONEGALL | Gavin Stamp |
| ROMANTIC POET | Robert Rowe |
| PRE-RAFAELITE BELLE | Juliana Nosworthy |
| GUITAR PLAYER | Gareth Jones |
| LOTUS -EATERS | Darien Angadi, Sabrina, Giles Musson, Piers Evans, |
| Oliver Christensen | |
| ANOMALOUS TYCOON | Peter Freemen. |
| THE GHOST OF CHIANG KAI-SHEK | Man-Shib |
| BROWNIES | the 38th. Cambridge Group |
| MORRIS DANCERS | The Cambridge Morris Men |
| GYMNASTS | The Cambridge University Olympic Gymnasts |
| ORCHESTRA & MUSICIANS | Martin Curd, Richard Lloyd Morgan, Graham Preskett, |
| John Huthnance, Nick Brown, Nigel Walsh, | |
| Anton Buyers, David Firman, Iain Cameron, etc. | |
| THE DOG 'CONKER' BY COURTESY OF | Simon Riggall, Esq. |
| THE CAT 'GOBINEAU' .. .. .. | Dr. M. D. Biddiss |
| WRITTEN & DIRECTED BY | PETER FREEMAN |
| THEATRICS | JOHN CHAPMAN |
| STILLS & PHOTOGRAPHICS | JULIAN GLASER & ALEX LAX |
| SOUND | RICHARD JONES |
| MUSIC COMPOSED & ARRANGED BY | RICHARD JONES & DAVID CONWAY |
| TECHNICAL ADVISER | DR. A .M . P. BROOKES |
| MISS FRANCIS' LINGERIE FROM | RICHARD SHONE |
| 'UNDER THE DEODAR' SUNG BY | RICHARD JACKSON |
| 'FEET OF CLAY' WRITTEN BY | LANCE SIEVEKING |
| THE VOICE OF THE SUPREME ADVOCATE WAS | ROBIN ORME'S |
TECHNICAL NOTE: at a later date it is hoped to produce a new print of the film incorporating optical sound with full lip-sync.
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He was young and sweet and twenty
He had worship, O! A plenty !
You loved him
But he loved only
Dolce far niente.
"I have spent the last forty thousand million years
talking through my hat. Like this . . ." ZEUS