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.