Family of David Maxwell Fyfe return to Fringe with Dreams of Peace & Freedom

Seventy-five years ago this year, discussions about a European convention and court of human rights took place during the first meeting of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe in Strasbourg.

The Convention was referred to the Legal and Cultural Committee chaired by David Maxwell Fyfe, who had served as a British prosecutor at Nuremberg, attracting popular attention for his cross-examination of Hermann Goering. He saw the job of championing and drafting the Convention as one piece of work.

The story of Maxwell Fyfe’s journey from Nuremberg to Strasbourg is told in Sue Casson’s song cycle, Dreams of Peace & Freedom, which powerfully weaves his own words with musical settings of poets that inspired him, against a background of archive film and imagery. It follows him as he travels through war-torn and barren Europe to sow the seeds of natural justice in Nuremberg and natural law in Strasbourg.

Leading up to the 75th anniversary of the signing of the ECHR in November 2025, English Cabaret are staging a series of commemorative performances starting this weekend – August 17 and 18 – at C aurora, Lauriston Halls.

On these dates in 1949, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe discussed the Convention for the first time, later working out the mechanism to implement it. The ECHR was signed in November 1950 and remains a beacon lit to give hope to those “in totalitarian darkness”.