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OH WHAT A LOVELY WAR
by Joan Littlewood's Theatre Workshop,
Charles Chilton, Gerry Raffles
 and Members of the  Original Cast
Venue: The Big Top, The Little Green, Richmond
Company: National Theatre 1998
Directed by Fiona Laird




Company
David Arnell
David Birrell
Simon Day
David Grant
Clive Hayward
Richard Henders
Dean Lennox Kelly
Karl Morgan
Jackie Morrison
Elizabeth Renihan
Joanna Riding
Sonia Swaby
Krane Thornber
Nicholas Tigg

Review

Joan Littlewood staged her 1963 vision of the Great War as a pierrot entertainment, linking popular songs of the period with farcical sketches of 'the War Game'. But she counterpointed their gaiety and gusto with grim images of trench warfare and flickering news reports listing the carnage. Youth productions have kept the show alive over the years. But with this first professional revival for the National, Fiona Laird's 14-strong troupe restores the bitter irony of the original with tremendous attack: from leap-frogging staff officers to Haig's calculating triumphalism (brilliantly portrayed by Clive Hayward), while squaddies serenade the whizzbangs and advance to their deaths baaing like sheep.

In Campbell Park, the Big Top's open spaces, rain hammering on the canvas, Neil McArthur's six-piece band sounds suitably ready. But there are some outstanding musical moments, especially the pure, lyrical voice of Joanna Riding with Roses of Picardy, or as a nurse in Novello's Keep the Home Fires Burning, David Arneil as the MC in Goodbyee and the poignant fina1e of They'll Never Believe Us. If the build-up to war seems effortful and the ending too sudden, there are splendid set pieces throughout the evening. David Birrell talking gibberish as a drill sergeant in bayonet practice is a  comic stand-out. Elizabeth Renihan's Fabian pacifist on a soapbox bravely makes her case, heckled by mindless jingoists. And here again are the international profiteers on a grouse-shoot, political intrigues at a military ball and that important scene of the first Christmas truce on the Western Front. The committed energy of the whole company proves irresistible.