Creating a family show from WW1 is a challenging endeavour but we have seen a number of remarkably succesful productions come from this most unlikely of sources.
In this case, the story revolves around the Christmas Truce of 1914 and in particular around a Warwickshire regiment who found themselves on duty over the period facing a German group from Saxony. The Warwickshires numbered amongst their officers Bruce Bairnsfather, the famous cartoonist. Of course, this is the start of the war, the first few months, and the lads back home are keen to get stuck in before its all over - the world has yet to see the true horrrors of the trenches. Woven into this is the story of some of the nurses working out of the front-line "hospitals", thank goodness the role of women is given a significan role as it so often gets left behind in stories of war. In both the soldiers and the nurses we see both the desire for a new, better way of doing things and the need to prevent the chaos of uncontrolled change and this presents conflicts as strong as those with the Germans - well, with the honest soldiers on the ground anyway.
The script seems a bit heavy handed at times with the cast struggling to make it live, I can't put my finger on why but it simply failed to flow at times; the truce between the nurse and her matron being a case in point - well acted, well directed but as cold and flat as yesterday's pancake. None the less, we are treated to a range of credible and sympathetic characters (some delightfuly recognisable if you know the cartoons!) and a (mostly) well paced production with the odd joke, often in the form of references to German footballing prowess - all in good fun.
To be honest I missed seeing a bit more of Bairnsfather's output, we saw him draw, we saw people laugh but we didn't see the drawings - a disconnect that left us struggling to decide why he was there? Think of how the artist's output is used in War Horse ... closing the loop and letting us see the war through these sketches would have added weight and power and sent most of the younger audience off to see the RSC curated exhibition of his work and impact.
The set was very evocative and the staging, particularly of some of the scenes like the initial cricket match and the description of staying alive (type of weapons to kill you) were particularly effective. The painting of the backdrop "floor" had me in mind of Terry Gilliam's Monty Python interludes and it jarred a bit but that was probably just me.
The cast worked hard but, for me at least, the evening just didn't catch a spark. In the end I found that the show entertained and (for its intended audience) informed, but it did not engage or move me and I'm a notorious sobber when it comes to tales from WW1. However, I couldn't have agreed less with the audience members I heard muttering as we left "well, its hardly suitable for children is it" ... this show is definitely suitable for children, treating them, as it does, as intelligent audience members amd telling them an important piece of our history ...
