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This powerful musical reflects upon the role of young people in war. The tragedy of World War I is redefined in bawdy music-hall terms, presented as the "new attraction" at the Brighton Amusement Pier, complete with syrupy cheer-up songs, shooting galleries, free prizes and a scoreboard toting up the dead. St. Ives Youth Theatre's first promenade musical. Performed as Promenade Theatre in the Burgess Hall, St. Ives in July 2003. |
The Story focuses mainly on the members of one family (last name Smith) whose five sons enlist and end up as cannon fodder. Much of the action revolves around the words of the marching songs of the soldiers, and many scenes portray some of the more famous (and infamous) incidents of the war, including: the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand, the Christmas meeting between British and German soldiers in no-mans-land, the wiping out by their own side of a force of Irish soldiers. The final image is a very proper British picnic on a graveyard. "Grant us victory, O Lord, before the Americans get here. |
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Joan Littlewood (6 October 1914 - 20 September 2002) was a British theatrical director, famous for her work in developing the left-wing Theatre Workshop. At her influential peak in the 1950s and 1960s, she was a well-known international figure not only in the area of theatre but in politics as well. One of Littlewood's most famous productions was the British première of Bertolt Brecht's Mother Courage and Her Children (1955), which she directed and also starred in the lead role. Her production of Fings Ain't Wot They Used T'Be, a musical about the London underworld, became a hit and ran from 1959 to 1962. The works for which she is now best remembered are probably the satirical musical, Oh! What a Lovely War (1963) and Shelagh Delaney's A Taste of Honey (1958), which gained great critical acclaim. Both were subsequently made into films. Many well-regarded television and stage actors began their professional careers at the workshop, including Yootha Joyce, Glynn Edwards, Harry H. Corbett, George A. Cooper, Richard Harris, Stephen Lewis, Howard Goorney, Brian Murphy, Murray Melvin and Babs Windsor. Littlewood died, in 2002, of natural causes at the age of 87 in the London flat of Peter Rankin, her UK base for the previous 23 years. |
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| Related Web Sites, Articles and Media Links | |
Oh what a lovely menu - Huntingdon and St. Ives Weekly News - 27 June 2003 |
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