Private Peaceful

World War One, the “War to End All Wars”, has been the subject of many stage productions, as well as numerous TV and radio dramas. For me, there isn’t any subject matter which moves me quite as much. Michael Morpurgo’s Private Peaceful deals with the most tragic and disgraceful situations of all during that conflict – those British soldiers, over 300 of them, who were “shot at dawn” by their own side.

Private Tommo Peaceful (Alexander Campbell) is introduced to us as we enter the intimate Trafalgar Studio 2, lying on his bed in the condemned’s cell. During his final few hours before his execution for cowardice in the face of the enemy, he takes the audience on his life journey, through schooldays, first love, joining the army, and fighting for King and country. It’s like watching an autobiography being acted out in front of you. This style of storytelling is surprisingly effective in bringing the audience close to the character, so by the end it is as if we knew this person, making the inevitable closing scene even the harder to bear.

Many of the tales from Peaceful’s earlier childhood are very amusing, particularly the one where a pilot in a bi-plane lands in a field where Tommo is playing, to ask for directions in a Hugh Laurie-style English accent! Campbell makes eye contact with individuals in the audience throughout his performance. During his portrayal of a recruiting sergeant in Hatherleigh town square and a “your country needs you” speech, he pointed and stared directly at me and I was astonished to find myself wanting to say something in reply.

This actor has an extraordinary energy. His athletic acting and storytelling skills – which see him take on a great number of characters, including Charlie his brother, a Sergeant Major, and an elderly lady, all with their own mannerisms – matched with Morpurgo’s astounding story, marvellously adapted by the director Simon Reade, cannot fail to pack a punch. One minute Campbell is lying on his bed, the next he’s racing around the space, and then crawling through no man’s land amid machine gun fire.

Tim Streader‘s lighting is of great assistance, as is Jason Barnes’ sound design, which cleverly indicates exactly what’s happening or where Tommo is without being too loud or obvious. Bill Talbot‘s simple designs carry out their purpose well, although I’d have preferred perhaps a digitally projected backdrop rather than the clumsily painted boards depicting a desolate and muddy no man’s land. A fantastic production though – and perfect for the intimacy of Trafalgar Studio 2.

– Tom Atkins

NOTE: The following FOUR-STAR review dates from March 2006 and this production’s earlier London season at Trafalgar Studio 2.

Michael Morpurgo’s story of Private Peaceful, the teenager swept up in the horrors of the First World War, is as fresh as ever in Simon Reade’s adaptation. Alexander Campbell has taken over the role of the hapless Tommo who, in the stage version, is the soldier who must face a firing squad for cowardice.

Morpurgo’s book has an even stronger sense of brotherly love (readers will enjoy a somewhat different, surprise, ending which has had to be changed for the stage) and more reports of normal, if harsh, rural life a century ago.

Nevertheless, the play expresses very well the sense of time running out, of the nightmare of trench warfare and of a wasted life as, branded “worthless”, Tommo prepares for ignominious death after a hurried trial. Despite the sombre subject, the piece is touching rather than tragic, a celebration of life, love and humanity rather than a wake.

Campbell looks as young, eager and untried as a raw recruit. With no more than a filthy bed and his worn fatigues to help him, he paints such vivid word-pictures of Devon life in a loving family, of skinny dipping, haymaking and the agonies of young love, that the audience feel they are with him at Ypres too. He slips easily into other characters – village colonel, roaring sergeant major, comrades, teachers and children – and can be forgiven a slightly wayward Devon accent. Tommo’s bright personality remains crystal-clear.

– Heather Neill

NOTE: The following FOUR-STAR review dates from August 2004 and this production’s original dates at the Edinburgh Fringe.

Despite being published by Harper Collins Children’s Books, winning the Red
House Children’s Book Award and being listed in the Edinburgh Fringe under children’s shows, this captivating piece of storytelling is for everyone. Michael Morpurgo’s novel Private Peaceful in its superb stage version, adapted and directed
by Simon Reade (for a production that was first seen at the Bristol Old Vic
in April),
has universal resonance for adults and children alike.

Like Journey’s End, it takes you into the heart and soul of a young
man on the front line of the First World War, but adds the ‘back story’ of
his short life that has brought him here. As he relives his past, growing
up in rural Devon, his schooldays and the accidental death of his father,
his first (and only) romance with a girl who ends up marrying his brother,
and signing up for the army (with an old woman’s remonstrations of cowardice
ringing in his ears when he originally flees from the prospect of doing so),
the story is cast in the shadow of his impending death.

But this isn’t the
death of ‘honour’ that will await the soldiers of Journey’s End going
into battle, but that of dishonour. At dawn, Private Tommo Peaceful is to
face the firing squad.

A programme note informs us that this was the fate of over 290 soldiers of
the British and Commonwealth armies during the war, “some for desertion and
cowardice, two for simply sleeping at their posts.” Many, it goes on, “we
now know were traumatised by shell shock. Court martials were brief, the
accused often unrepresented. To this day the injustice they suffered has
never been officially recognised. The British Government continues to refuse
to grant posthumous pardons.”

But in remembering one of them, who was just 18 when he was executed,
Morpurgo’s story – and now Reade’s staging of it – movingly honours the
memory of men like him. And as acted by Paul Chequer with burning
sincerity, by turns touching and intense, this story of imminent death comes
to urgent life.

– Mark Shenton