Theatre / Reviews
Review: War Game, Bristol Old Vic Studio
Picture by ShotAway
Ah, the Beautiful Game: teams of sweat-browed young men bounding across the field, urged on by their mates and barked at from the touchline. Now transpose this idyllic scene to France, 1914.
Michael Foreman’s award-winning 1993 novella for young readers takes inspiration from his childhood experiences and lifelong love of football. A writer and illustrator for 50 years, Foreman has collaborated with the likes of Terry Jones and Michael Morpurgo, notably creating artwork for the latter’s Billy the Kid, which covers the hell of Belsen. He doesn’t shy from showing truths to children. So, with the centenary of WW1 dominating arts schedules, this is an opportune time to explore and adapt War Game for young theatregoers.
Bristol playwright and director Toby Hulse uses the book as a starting point for this devised show. It’s August 1914: Will is longing for adventure and enlists along with his village pals because “you can’t let your mates down, can you?” We can see where this is heading. Yet the joy of this production is how it takes inevitability as a given, focussing instead on one man’s experience of terror and the moments of relief from it.
On an understated set, with the stage manager visible throughout, this promises something different. Kieran Buckeridge’s sound design becomes a character in its own right as the audience plays their part: applause and cheers are recorded live and transformed into rain and shelling. There are lovely sections of interaction, too (to say more would reveal too much).
This is a solo performance and, as Will, Robin Hemmings has us at ‘hello.’ He journeys from footie-mad lad to private in the King’s Royal Rifles and finally to Everyman Tommy playing a German side in a Christmas Day match and personalizing generic ‘Fritz’ into Hans. The truce is brief, however: and Hemmings is adept at changing tone – and characters – to engage directly with us, even asking for our help.
With so many WW1 narratives around, is it possible to become desensitized? Arguably the stories that endure are those seeking to understand, rather than just to present, misery. On this Armistice Day showing, the final pared-down scene left some people visibly moved.
Forget Premiership nonsense: Hulse and his collaborators – audience included – show how moments of empathy and teamwork can make theatre the ultimate beautiful game.
War Game continues at Bristol Old Vic until Saturday, November 22. For more information and to book tickets, visit http://www.bristololdvic.org.uk/wargame.html
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