The choice by director Ian Talbot of Joan Littlewood's celebrated musical entertainment as the summer musical in the park was, to say the least, daring. Would this old anti-war polemic devised in 1961 by Littlewood, Charles Chilton, Jerry Raffles, and her Stratford East actors still pack a punch? The answer, as George Bush rattles his sabres against Iraq, is that it does. War today may not be like it was in the days of the war to end all wars, but the politicians and the military men are playing the same games and patriotic jargon is still used to conceal the truth.
Talbot has drilled his cast well, and the classic moments - the drill sergeant speaking gobbledegook as he torments his squaddies, the painted music hall artiste promising to make a man of anyone on Saturday if they will enlist, those roses blooming in Picardy as the home fires burn and the white feathers fly, set against the endless lists of statistics as the
Western Front gets bogged down in mud - still work. The message is as relevant today as ever it was.
Above all there are the songs. The 1914-18 war was rich in songs, some sentimental, some embarrassingly patriotic, some ironic, and Littlewood made the most of them. Designer Kit Surrey has created a splendid boardwalk, all sea bleached timber and white ironwork, for the Roosters concert party to perform their war games on, but it is too large for the show.
Oh What A Lovely War, a collection of songs and sketches, not production numbers, is more of a revue than a musical, and needs the confining
intimacy of the proscenium arch. Some of the moments get lost in Surrey's wide-open spaces. Cut by half it would have worked far better. But, that said, Fred Karno's army should never be forgotten and Talbot has done the great Joan's piece about it justice.
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