There aren’t many British landscapes as evocative as Hadrian’s Wall, a physical span over nearly two millennia, which in 2010 inspired an aptly motley crew of folk singer-songwriters and performance poets to create tonight’s performance.

Closeted together in a Northumbrian farmhouse, established and rising stars of English roots music – Julie Matthews, Jez Lowe, Boo Hewerdine, Rory McLeod, Kate Bramley and Ruth Notman – brainstormed for a week with Radio 4 Saturday Live favourites Kate Fox, Matt Harvey and Elvis McGonagall. The resulting songs and verse interweave idioms from trad to vaudeville, ranging in theme from Roman invaders to the real and imagined walls that still divide us