Over the Top

And so to the theatre. The centenary of the Great War and of the Somme in particular has been marked by two plays on the stages of Leeds. First up was 'Leeds Pals' which looked at the local volunteers who volunteered together in the first weeks and months of the war and served together in July 1916. This piece was put together specifically for the anniversary and was generally well received with reviews marking it out as a tear jerker. However, I must say that I felt it had a large number of flaws which prevented any real emotional engagement. Firstly they focussed in on two individuals (spoiler alert - one survives, one doesn't), thereby ignoring the real story which was the heavy levels of casualties concentrated on small communities because of the flawed concept of 'Pals Battalions'. Secondly they framed it with story of one Tommy's great grandson's service in Afghanistan which simply diluted the whole thing further. The power of the collective memory of the First World War comes about largely because anyone whose family lived in the UK one hundred years ago has a close connection with those events and probably knows about it and, at least in outline, the part which their relatives played. Afghanistan, and I have no intention of minimising the personal tragedies of those who suffered physically and/or psychologically there, does not have the same resonance. I don't know or know of anyone who served there; since seeing the play I have asked around and haven't found anyone with any personal connection at all to that conflict. Joining the army in the autumn of 1914 was a response to a mixture of existential threat, peer pressure, emotional blackmail and god knows what else. Joining the army in the twenty first century is a career choice. It didn't work dramatically to conflate the two.

Far better was 'Barnbow Canaries' at the West Yorkshire Playhouse, which told the story of an explosion at a munitions factory in Leeds which killed 35 people and was hushed up at the time. The canaries tag was a reference both to the TNT poisoning which slowly turned the women yellow, and to their expendability both during the war, and afterwards when the men returned and took back their jobs. It's probably impossible to write about the First World War without using at least some cliches; the skill of the playwright is best shown in which ones they select and the context in which they place them. Because this is a play about women we get the girl giving herself to the boyfriend leaving for the front, we get resigned spinsterhood given the shortage of men and we get stiff upper lips as the telegrams arrive, all of which succeed where, for example, the pompous posh boy officer from a mine-owning family in command of the 'Leeds Pals' fails. 'Barnbow Canaries' is on for a while longer yet; see if it you can, but beware, this one will bring a tear to your eye.