A Watch Ticks Towards Dawn In A Devastating One-Man War Story

Michael Morpurgo's tale of loyalty, first love and the shot-at-dawn soldiers of the Great War is harrowing, humane and, surprisingly, funny. Group Editor Andrew Palmer was among the Harrogate audience on its feet at the end.

Before a word is spoken, Tommo Peaceful is already there. As the audience files in, Benjamin Cain lies motionless on a camp bed on an almost bare stage. Voices drift through the auditorium: soldiers' words set to the hymn tune of Praise, My Soul, the King of Heaven, and the bawdy strains of Mademoiselle from Armentières, better known to generations of Tommies as Inky Pinky Parlez Vous. Then the lights go down, and a pocket watch begins to tick.

That ticking is the pulse of Simon Reade's stage adaptation of Michael Morpurgo's novel, and it takes the whole evening to understand what it is counting down to. Cain is alone for the entire play. In between, he takes us through a life: a country childhood, playground scraps, a teenage crush on Molly, and above all, an unshakeable devotion to his older brother, Charlie. When Molly and Charlie have a child out of wedlock and marry, Tommo's loyalty does not waver. When war comes, the brothers sign up together, with Tommo only sixteen.

It would be easy to assume that a story heading for Flanders is 80 minutes of unrelieved gloom. It is not. The humour comes with a wryness that makes the poignancy cut even deeper. A French girl, learning his name, is delighted: all English soldiers, she tells him, are called Tommy. The class system of yesteryear makes its appearances too, not least in the shape of a colonel. There is a lovely, sunlit sequence in which we hear that Molly and Charlie go skinny-dipping, and Tommo, after some hesitation, joins them. A pastoral interlude on the farm, alive with swallows and birdsong, is all the more precious for what we know lies ahead.

Cain is mesmerising. He captures the vulnerability of a sixteen-year-old with great sensitivity, but it is Tommo's naivety that draws us in, and we warm to him long before we fear for him. His physical precision is remarkable as he turns on a sixpence from one character to the next. The choreography of the piece is so assured that a camp bed becomes, without fuss, the barbed wire of the trenches. He delivers every line with a compelling, heartfelt sense of what is looming.

He is superbly served. Adam Foley's lighting design uses colour to mark each chapter of Tommo's life, from the warm hues of childhood to the stark, bleak darkness of No Man's Land, which is particularly chilling. The soundscape is equally telling. A snatch of Holst's Mars from The Planets brings the menace of mechanised war crashing in, while Allegri's haunting, sombre Miserere mei settles over the stage like mourning.

Reade's script, too, has lines that linger and make you think. "Death is not a full stop." "Nothing ever stays the same." "No tomorrow will be as good as today." And there is room for glorious alliteration: a gaggle of giggling girls.

In Flanders, Tommo sees clearly that an order will end in disaster, and loyalty to his wounded brother pulls him one way while the army pulls him another. What follows is best discovered in the theatre. Suffice to say that the significance of the watch comes into its own, and that we realise, too late, exactly which night we have been sharing with him. The close is quietly devastating.

Those who know the book may find that Reade has a surprise or two in store.

The story carries a real-world charge. Morpurgo was a prominent voice in the long campaign for justice for the 306 British and Commonwealth soldiers executed during the First World War for offences such as cowardice, desertion and disobedience. In August 2006, the government announced a group statutory pardon. They had, after all, fought for King and country.

It is hard to shake off the impact of a play told so beautifully and compassionately, and it is a timely reminder of what war does to the young. The standing ovation at the end was not a courtesy but a reflex.

A harrowing story, then, and one you might think you would rather not sit through. You would be wrong. Private Peaceful is not to be missed, and Benjamin Cain's performance is a tour de force.



Private Peaceful continues at Harrogate Theatre until Saturday and is at Hull Truck Theatre on 1st to 3rd October and Wakefield Theatre Royal 27th - 28th October.