OWALW“All we needed were the songs in the right order, the facts and the quotes” (J Littlewood)

Songs of the day (+ altered reprise of title song) Short scenes – callous generals Projections – statistics and facts (newspanel & screen)

Songs (& interspersed musical snippets) – integral – essential to structure and meaning - a catalyst

A revue / the medium /subliminal messages

British tradition of music hall, variety shows and pantomime (audience participation)

Documentary theatre

Ambivalence / Double-entendres /Satire (Sassoon)

Factual data War generals and politicians / Siegfried Sassoon (satire?) / Times & Daily Express

What do the songs achieve?

Content / drama Time period Voice (idealistic/disillusioned/cynical) How does this reflect the progress of the war and mood / attitude Language / imagery

Row, Row, Row Establishes mood. Coy and tongue-in-cheek. Function : scenic and associative.

Kibosh didactic narrative. Contradictory messages surrounded by corpses yet stage direction is ‘sing triumphantly’ patriotic/stirring/positive song v. war costs lives

Are We Downhearted conveys the mood of the men

Hold Your Hand Out atmospheric. optimism and normality

I’ll Make A Man Of You didactic and narrative. Climax of recruiting section

Virility = ability to fight for your country “…when you make a strapping soldier of a kid.”

(Brechtian (?) song and performance knowingly propagandist to prevent nostalgia

Lyric later transformed to a cruder, bitter parody when sung by drunken soldiers – a turning point, revealing attitudes albeit when squiffy, dissent.

Goodbye-eee sung by women only (all the men are at the front)

Oh It’s A Lovely War jaunty, march-like. Sense of light entertainment

Satirical: newspanel BATTLE OF YPRES BRITISH LOSS 59,275 MEN

Ironic: rhetorical questions becoming more didactic

“Send your men to enlist today” while singers throw white feathers at the audience

I Wore A Tunic contrast between military and civilian life. Dancers are unconcerned; soldiers singing are full of resentment.

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‘Hymns’ Forward Joe Soap’s Army / Fred Karno’s Army / when This Lousy war is Over

The men’s critical and negative attitudes to their commanding officers / weariness with fighting / wish to return to civilian life. Change from patriotism and optimism to low morale. The official view was that the men were compliant, but the soldiers had quite different feelings and thoughts.

Keep the Home Fires Burning nurse’s letter ‘It’s beyond belief, the butchery’

Context – shows the optimism and reassurance of the song to be a sham, and makes the sentiments hard to swallow. It also supports the scene transition from the battlefield to a Lancashire street where mill girls are reading the latest casualty list.

Chanson de Craonne/Don’t Want To Be A Soldier/And When They Ask Us/Oh It’s a Lovely War*

*parodied words – events so physically and psychologically damaging the men were unable to speak about them.

Leaves feeling of hollowness and desolation. Final projected slide ‘a long line of tommies walking away from the camera, following the direction of the trench’ singing

’There was a front, but damned if we knew where’

Incidental music ... “instant location or mood music that creates a connection with the audience with a particular place or feeling”

Overture: National Anthem/Land of Hope and Glory (establishes British perspective) I Do Like To Be Beside The Seaside (location / seaside-postcard world of Edwardian England)

Pop goes the Weasel/Battle Hymn of the Republic (while Haig commanding Battle of the Somme). Officers giving orders while men leap-frogging – exaggerates different worlds, men following nonsensical orders like children, doing what they’re told without questioning. Contrasts officers command/trenches.

Rule Britannia Sung in Mrs Pankhurst scene to drown out her ‘unpatriotic’ speech.

Far, far from Wipers

Haig (when strategy questioned) ‘There must be no squeamishness over losses’

Gassed Last Night used to accompany slide sequence

I Want to Go Home “I don’t want to die, I want to go home”

Oh It’s A Lovely War reprise – a dirge

Purpose – to educate and entertain. Deliberate polarisation of attitudes and class Agitprop

“They must all be pierrots … after all, war is only for clowns” (J Littlewood)

1965 - Potential WW3 (nuclear) / CND / Vietnam War protest (end of old order?) – still controversial

History of WW1 plays – Shaw, Malleson / Censorship

To break down 4th wall – direct address / Placards /Projection /Narration /songs

“an inherent immediacy … that projects directly at the audience” (Steve Lewis)

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Awful reality of war – cold quotes and statistics, popular songs – naïve and reflecting changing mood. Audience left to draw their own conclusions.

Irony & sharp satire

What the critics said

1. Political bias. Over-favourable representation of working-class troops, unfair treatment of Haig and other officers. Wondered whether audience would walk out

2. Stoic courage of common soldiers, sanctimonious incompetence of commanders and blind jingoism of civilians (The Times).…a serious piece of pacifist propaganda – serious to the point of passion and bitterness (Evening Standard)

3. “Do we have to think when we laugh?” (US critic)

‘A collectively created indictment of war’

Frenetic – multimedia assault on the senses. Surreal.

Joan Littlewood tips for performers:

“…Avoid declaiming. Cut emotion. Find the action in the speech…”

MC ‘We’ve got songs for you, a few battles and some jokes’

Stereotypes countries.

First appearance of British General

British Admiral – Have you got a plan? British General – Of course Slide 5 – blank

Kaiser ‘Send a telegram to my cousin George V’Kibosh – perfidy of the enemy ‘when John Bull starts to hit…

French Officer ‘…. I lay all night listening to the wounded groaning … two or three men go mad every day.’Are We Downhearted?

‘While we’ve Jack upon the sea, and Tommy on the land we needn’t fret’Hold your hand out – 4 young couples, unaware, strolling. Drill Sergeant knocks the men into shape, abuse, creates hatred

‘..Maybe he’s f---d your mother, your sister, your brother. Go for his ---‘Slides Have you a REASON – or only an EXCUSE - for not enlisting NOW?

Singer : ‘Be a man, enlist today.’Wilson (Field-marshal) ‘I’ve actually worked out the number of carriages we’ll need for the first stage, sir, and even the quantity of forage for the horses; wouldn’t care to see the figures would you?

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French (Field-marshal) ‘No, no. Not just now thank you.’Then FM French also dismissive of intel

‘..we all know about your bicycle rides around France’Corporal : Ambulances are ready serge. Officers only.Sergeant : What about the other ranks?Corporal : No arrangements made for them at the moment.(‘we’re her because we’re ‘ere because we’re ‘ere’ – discontent, gentle subversion)

Slide (ad) : PHOSPHERINE – The Greatest of all Tonics, Royalty use Phospherine as a Liver Tonic, Blood Enricher, Nerve Strengthener’

Wipers Gazette : “Do you believe good news in preference to bad? Do you think the war will be over by springtime? Have you got faith in our Generals? If the answer to any of these questions is yes, then you are sufferin’ from that dread disease, Optimism, and should take seven days’ leave immediately.”

Soldier (of a German singing a carol) ‘Sings well for a bastard don’t ‘e’’Newspanel: ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT…ALLIES LOSE 850,000 MEN IN 1914…HALF BRITISH EXPIDITIONARY FORCE WIPED OUT

Goodbye-ee (sung ‘quietly and simply by MC)

Newspanel: WELCOME 1915 … HAPPY YEAR THAT WILL BRING VICTORY AND PEACE

Sound of shell exploding. Last line of song inaudible

Newspanel : BATTLE OF YPRES … GERMANS USE POISON GAS … LOOS BRITISH LOSS 8,236 MEN IN 3 HOURS … GERMAN LOSS NIL.

Oh It’s a Lovely War :

‘’who wouldn’t be a soldier, eh? / It seems a shame to take the pay”

The Grouse shoot: Britain suggests France ship its nickel for Germany through Scandinavia.

Britain ‘they’ve just taken Jacks and Co. to court for exporting iron ore to Germany… they’ve got a blacklist and I’m on it…Mind you, they’ll never publish it, we bought out some of the papers…’

Switzerland : war is a political and economic necessity

Germany : when are you going to export some shillings for the Krupps fuses you are using in your English grenades?

America “…there have been two peace scares in the last year. Our shares dropped 40%’

Britain : New springs of wealth arise from war

America : It advances scientific discovery

France : war is the lifeblood of a nation

Britain : ‘Do you mean the German chappies were caught on their own barbed wire? I say, that’s a bit near the knuckle, what! Dashed clever, though.

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Switzerland : We must take some credit for that

Britain : Yes, ten per cent, no doubt

Britain : Well the old chlorine’s pretty good. Haig’s trying it out this moment at Loos. Mind you, we haven’t heard from him. Yet.’

Slides: includes crocodile of Tommy’s with their eyes bandaged, each with a hand on the shoulder of the soldier in front.

CO : and that gas of ours was pretty nasty – damned wind changing … but these mishaps do happen in war, and gas can be a war-winning weapon. Sector all tidy now, lieutenant?

Lieutenant: well we’ve buried most of the second Yorks and Lancs, sir… [on 17 July 1917, a royal proclamation issued by George V declared:

“Now, therefore, We, out of Our Royal Will and Authority, do hereby declare and announce that as from the date of this Our Royal Proclamation Our House and Family shall be styled and known as the House and Family of Windsor” from the German Saxe-Coburg and Gotha (a branch of the House of Wettin)]

Wilson: The mess was vastly relieved when they changed their name from Wettin to Windsor.

Myvanwy: They’re still Germans, Sir Henry

Wilson : But it’s very unpatriotic to say so, Lady Myvanwy

Haig : We need only one more big offensive to break through and win. My troops are of fine quality , and specially trained for this type of war.

British general : This is not war sir, it is slaughter

Haig : God is with us. It is for King and Empire

British General : We are sacrificing lives at the rate of five to sometimes fifty thousand a day.

(Long, long trail)Haig : Complete victory, the destruction of German militarism… my men are advancing across no-man’s land …forbidden under pain of court martial to take cover in any shell-hole or dug-out… their magnificent morale will cause the enemy to flee in confusion… I feel that every step I take is guided by the divine will.

Sound of heavy bombardment

NEWSPANEL: FEBRUARY … VERDUN… TOTAL LOSS ONE AND A HALF MILLION MEN

Haig : We must break through.

British General : Regardless of loss, sir?

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Haig : the loss of, say, another 300,000 men may lead to really great result

Mrs Pankhurst scene reading from a letter by George Bernard Shaw –

‘ The men of this country are being sacrificed to the blunders of boobies, the cupidity of capitalists …’

Mrs P : The politicians chatter like imbeciles while civilisation bleeds to death

Third man : That’s treason!

Mrs P : … the sons of Europe are being crucified … crucified on the barbed wire, because you, the misguided masses, still cry for war.

Haig : I am the predestined instrument of providence for the achievement of victory for the British Army

English / German women – both pairs accuse the enemy of boiling down corpses for glycerine

Runner : Seventy per cent casualties, sir.

British General : Then there is a corner of some foreign land that is forever England.’

First soldier : Old soldiers never die, the young ones with they would.

NEWSPANEL : APRIL 17 … AISNE … ALLIED LOSS 180,000 MEN … GAIN … NIL

HAIG : I understand the prime minister has been asking questions about my strategy. I cannot believe a British minister could be so ungentlemanly.’

NEWSPANEL: AVERAGE LIFE OF A MACHINE GUNNER UNDER ATTACK … FOUR MINUTES

NEWSPANEL : SEPT 20 … MENIN ROAD … BRITISH LOSS 22,000 MEN GAIN 800 YARDS

First [mill] girl : Y’know they’re bringin’ ’em ‘ome at night now, don’t yer’

NEWSPANEL : OCT 12 … PASSCHENDAELE … BRITISH LOSS 13,000 MEN IN 3 HOURS … GAIN 100 YARDS [Haig’s comment – ‘Mostly gamekeepers and servants’]

French soldier : we think it is stupid to go into the trenches again

French Officer : you don’t think, you obey. If you refuse you will be shot

French Soldier : very well we will follow you like lambs to the slaughter.

French soldier : baaa

‘Lovely war wasn’t just a show. It was a revelation’

Victor Spinetti (original cast member)

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