The Joan Littlewood creation of satirical musical was as hard hitting now as it would have been in the 60s when it was first produced, especially as it utilised images of war that are current as well as historic and this enabled the pupils to make the connections - political, historical, economic and social across all periods - that of the human cost of war.
The production where all parts (innumerable) were played by 5 extremely talented minstrels took us through the political landscape of developing and dwindling European powers from 1880s to the terrorist attack causing the death of the Archduke and his 'Fat Sofie' that catapulted the alliances into full scale slaughter...
The details of the War years and the political shananigans were played in song and sketch, contrasting enormously with the trench play of Journey's End we saw before half term and made a neat comparison with Blackadder goes Forth which we have also studied.
The pupils could not avoid the connections the production made with our current political landscape...
We look forward to the London lectures we are attending on Wilfred Owen later this month.
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