In 2014, the year that will mark 100 years since the outbreak of the First World War, Rachel Wagstaff’s stage adaptation of Birdsong, from the novel by Sebastian Faulks, will tour the UK, stopping off at three of our local theatres. The show appears first at the Devonshire Park Theatre, Eastbourne from Wednesday February 12th to Saturday February 15th 2014 before moving on, for a full week of performances from Monday 24th February to Saturday 1st March, to the Assembly Hall Theatre, Tunbridge Wells. The show then makes a final local appearance at the Connaught Theatre, Worthing from Monday 31st March – Saturday 5th April.
The play is set in pre-war France where a young Englishman, Stephen Wraysford, embarks on a passionate and dangerous affair with the beautiful Isabelle Azaire that turns their worlds upside down. As the war breaks out, Stephen must lead his men through the carnage of the Battle of the Somme and through the sprawling tunnels that lie deep underground. Faced with the unprecedented horror of the war, Stephen clings to the memory of Isabelle and the idyll of his former life as his world explodes around him.
Birdsong has become a classic of modern English literature and is taught on both the English and History syllabuses at schools and universities. Regularly voted as one of the nation’s all-time favourite books, it has sold more than two million copies in the United Kingdom and more than three million worldwide.
The 2013 tour received four and five star reviews and audiences called the show “simply stunning”. Sebastian Faulks is thrilled the show is re-mounting for 2014 stating: “Both Rachel and I want this to be the definitive version of Birdsong on stage. The audience watch it and think, thank God I have never undergone all of this. These experiences are far outside the lives of most people but there is something about the way the production works which makes people identify and think, it could be me…” Sebastian joined the 2013 company on stage in a cameo role during its 200th Performance in Brighton.
Rachel Wagstaff previously adapted Sebastian Faulks’s The Girl at the Lion d’Or for BBC Radio 4 and she and Faulks are currently writing two screenplays together. She is a participant of Old Vic New Voices and her work has been performed at the annual 24 Hour Plays. She said, “When I first approached Sebastian, there were only five British veterans from the First World War still alive. With the death of Harry Patch in 2009, we were left without a single living connection to those who fought, for us. It seems more important than ever that we continue to tell the stories of those who gave their lives. Birdsong, while first and foremost a simply brilliant work of fiction, gives extraordinary insight into what it must have been like to witness such suffering on an unprecedented scale. I’m delighted that in the year which marks one hundred years since war was declared, The Original Theatre Company and Birdsong Productions are launching a second regional tour of their beautiful and powerful production.”
The tour of Birdsong will continue to support Help for Heroes, after raising over £50,000 through collections and events on the 2013 tour.
Tickets are already on sale for, what promises to be, a very poignant play that will form part of a full year of commemorative events throughout the country. Please contact the individual theatre box offices, or check out their websites, for full details.
