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Kieron Quirke's rating
, Return to No Man's Land
By
Kieron Quirke
12 Jun 2007
A play relying on eyewitness accounts of the First World War was never going to lack poignancy, horror and heroism. Where Forgotten Voices fails is in finding something extra to add to the familiar version of events.
It also, surprisingly, doesn't provide anything like immediacy. This is partly the fault of the device used to incorporate the accounts, all recorded by the National Archive in the 1950s.
Three ex-servicemen (one of them Matthew Kelly - you bet!) and one serviceman's wife gather in a waiting room at the Archive, having just given their testimony. Sure enough, they have nothing better to do than to tell each other the same stories again.
This fusion of conventional drama and historical documentary produces some odd coincidences. The four manage to keep a rigid chronological narrative, and the three men have all seen action in the same major battles.
The stories they tell too often have a heard-it-all-before quality - vermin in the trenches, football in No Man's Land, officer complacency. There's little or no light relief - how could there be? - and misery overload comes quickly.
This is a part of history every child should learn - I'm just not sure this is the best way to revise it.
• Until 7 July. Information: 020 8237 1111; www.riversidestudios.co.uk.
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Reader views (1)
I saw the play with my 20 year-old daughter and 70 year-old father and we all agreed it was an excellent production that manages to convey the words of real people who lived through what was and still is the most traumatic event this country has endured for a thousand years. The cast has only 5 members but each of them portrays a composite character that has been stitched together from the memoirs left in the Imperial War Museum archives. Matthew Kelly superbly gives voice to the blunt Lancastrian Tommy whilst Rupert Frazer turns in a sterling performance as the archetypal officer and Belinda Lang is so endearing as 'Kitty' the young bride who became a munitions worker. Tim Woodwood is the sergeant who bristles every inch the British army that was still there for all to see the same day in the Mall for the Falklands Parade. All of them did the veterans of the Great War a great deal of justice by bringing their words back to life. Every syllable was clearly audible and that was so important because the words were so eloquent and all the more poignant for being un-scripted. There was no attempt to recast peoples opinions or actions or to attach modern day politically correct interpretations to what we today dismiss as misguided and old fashioned values. On behalf of all those who watched the play i would like to say thank you for that. My great grandfather died on October 24 1918 two weeks before the war ended. I feel sure he was looking down and he would have approved as well.
- Chris Bicknell, Rainham, England, 26/06/2007 02:18
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