This play by R.C. Sherriff is set in the officers quarters at the Western Front near St Quentin in March 1918. Its as authentic an account as has ever been written about the extraordinary modus opernandus of that campaign a sort of Blackadder The Fourth without the laughs.
That is, of course to trivialise what is essentially a searing indictment of the futility of all wars. An eighteen-year-old officer Lt Raleigh (the excellent Simon Wegrzyn) has deliberately got himself posted to C Company because it is in the charge of his hero from school, Captain Stanhope. Stanhope was captain of rugger at school, played for the cricket first eleven, and is engaged to Raleighs sister. Nothing has prepared the youngster for what he finds. Stanhope, though only twenty-one himself has been traumatically changed by his time on the front, drinks heavily and has no time for cowards or shirkers. Hes not best pleased to see Raleigh.
What should unfold is a heartbreaking tale of how Stanhope, in spite of his own demons, holds his troops together, even when they are told that the expected big push from the Germans will come before they are relieved. Unfortunately the production values and acting of Essential TC arent good enough to carry it off. The set is appalling. I know there are budgetary considerations in Edinburgh, but really, this look like a panto set, and is so un-actor friendly that in order to make entrances the lads seem to pop up like demented glove puppets from behind the wall before descending the steps.
Wegrzyn is terrific as Raleigh, which may be why the rest of the acting appears lacklustre or too big and declamatory not exactly bad, just dull and unfocused. James Norris has his moments as Stanhope, but is a bit on one note angry.
There are notes in the program which say this play is about our past and present and mans endless tendencies to warfare. You reckon? What director Helen Tolson seems to have missed is that this is a play about class. Witness the way these public schoolboys (and many of them were still boys really) insist on the social niceties being maintained as much as possible even in their squalid conditions. They have their own cook (a nicely pitched comic turn from Rick Harvey), and think its odd that any officer would spend too much time with the men. I didnt get much sense of this elitism at all.
The play is severely cut which also means the pacing and tumble towards tragedy is rushed. In the end it comes across as very am dram, but this is, in theory, a professional company and should be judged by professional standards. None the less, when one of the main characters is killed at the end it was still moving. Because he was so young. Because it was all so futile. Because it really happened to hundreds of thousands.
