Skip to content
Lecture

Judge Dennis Davis and Professor David Peimer
Cromwell: the Movie

Saturday 4.12.2021

Summary

“Cromwell” is a British historical drama film written and directed by Ken Hughes based on the life of Oliver Cromwell, who rose to lead the Parliamentary forces during the later parts of the English Civil War and, as Lord Protector, ruled Great Britain and Ireland in the 1650s. Judge Dennis Davis and Professor David Peimer discuss some of the many interesting aspects of the film and its impact.

Judge Dennis Davis

judge-dennis-davis.png

Dennis Davis is a judge of the High Court of South Africa and judge president of the Competition Appeals Court of South Africa. He has held professorial appointments at the University of Cape Town and University of the Witwatersrand, as well as numerous visiting appointments at Cambridge, Harvard, New York University, and others. He has authored eleven books, including Lawfare: Judging Politics in South Africa.

Professor David Peimer

An image of David Peimer

David Peimer is a Professor of Literature, Film and Theatre in the UK. He has worked for the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, New York University (Global Division) and was a Fulbright Scholar at Columbia University. Born in South Africa, David has won numerous awards for playwriting and directing in New York, UK, Berlin, EU Parliament (Brussels), Athens, Budapest, Zululand and more. He has most recently directed Dame Janet Suzman in his own play, Joanna’s Story, at London Jewish Book Week. He has published widely with books including: Armed Response: Plays from South Africa, the digital book, Theatre in the Camps. He is on the board of the Pinter Centre (London), and has been involved with the Mandela Foundation, Vaclav Havel Foundation and directed a range of plays at Mr Havel’s Prague theatre.

Well, it depends on which book you’re going to read, really. I think the certainly thing is that the books I’ve read, as I say I mentioned too that Fraser and Hill, they’re very nuanced. Cromwell is certainly not a hero in a classic sense of the word, but there was a great deal of nuance in the history, so it depends which history you read.

It’s a really important question. No, I don’t. I think that this has evolved over centuries and more in particular in countries.