Devotees of Sime’s art will be familiar with a little book Bogey Beasts published in 1923 by Goodwin & Tabb. It comprised 15 full-page black and white drawings of fantastic but harmless beasts reminiscent of Lewis Carroll, each accompanied by a ‘jingle’ – a descriptive verse – and a complementary musical score composed by Sime’s friend and fellow devotee of Edgar Allen Poe, Joseph Holbrooke. Although little heard now, Holbrooke was a talented musician, renowned in the 1920s for his adventurous and modernistic compositions; these pieces have a haunting sound reminiscent of Ravel. In Bogey Beasts their talents combined well to produce an ephemeral blend of images and sounds that was at once morbid, bizarre and humorous.

Many drawings were modified reproductions of a series which appeared in The Sketch in 1905 called ‘Sime Zoology – Beasts That Might Have Been’, with the jingles added later.

Narrator: Nick Higham
Piano: Professor Francis Pott
Tenor: Nigel Evans-Thompson