Oh What a Lovely War – review

Theatre Royal Stratford East, London
Terry Johnson's revival of Joan Littlewood's iconic musical restores a classic for a new generation

If ever a show deserved to be called "iconic" it was Joan Littlewood's original 1963 musical entertainment. It shifted attitudes to the first world war and was counterpoint to jaunty songs and hideous battle statistics. But Terry Johnson's revival, while retaining such vital features as the pierrot costumes and the newsreel ticker tape, is no slavish carbon copy, but a reimagining of a show that still leaves one emotionally devastated.

A lot has changed since 1963. We are now bombarded with documentaries and books that examine the origins and conduct of the war. It is no longer a shock to learn, as we do in the show, that men were sucked under by the mud at Passchendaele for minimal gain when we've seen Jeremy Paxman making the same point on television.

Theatrically, there is also a crucial difference in that Littlewood's show was partly created by a cast who carried out improvisations based on their own research. They owned the material, whereas the current cast perform it. But, although circumstances are different, Johnson's production captures the anger at Douglas Haig's attritional policy and the sympathy for the ordinary soldier that fired the original production.

One of the finest moments comes in the Christmas 1914 scene, when the entrenched British and Germans exchange songs and presents: the German rendering of Stille Nacht, Heilige Nacht brings a lump to the throat, which is immediately checked by the lewd British response of Christmas Day in the Cookhouse. This appeal to conflicting emotions has always been the secret of the show's success, and Johnson's production conveys this excellently towards the end when Haig's prayers for victory are accompanied by subversive rewrites of standard hymns by a battered infantry.

If Johnson has made changes, they are largely visual and aural. Lez Brotherston's set, with its filigree echoes of the theatre's proscenium arch, is more elaborate than the original, and the sound of exploding shells is more insistent than I recall. But the sinews of the show are still there and the 12-strong cast works with tireless dedication. Shaun Prendergast acts as MC and does the famous, totally incomprehensible drill routine; Ian Bartholomew and Michael Simkins perfectly establish the detachment from reality of the military leaders; and Caroline Quentin renders the recruiting song, I'll Make a Man of You!, with a classy suggestiveness.

I'll admit there were times when I missed the structured fluidity that was part of Littlewood's genius, but Johnson's production has heart and soul and rightly restores a classic for a new generation.

In pictures: 50 years of Oh What a Lovely War

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National Theatre Platform: Murray Melvin talks to Michael Billington about the original production of Oh What a Lovely War

Contributor

Michael Billington

The GuardianTramp

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