Big Push brings show to fruition

Grassington Players take to the Town Hall stage 15^th – 18^th October with an ambitious tribute to those who died, or lived through, the First World War. 

Oh What A Lovely War was a groundbreaking production when it was first staged by Joan Littlewood’s revolutionary Theatre Workshop company in the 1960s. It helped change public attitudes to the first world war as it was the first time that the despair and disenchantment felt by the average soldier and the incompetence and detachment shown by senior officers had been portrayed in popular entertainment. Throughout the show the statistics of the war are projected on the back wall. The War Office wrote to Joan to give a correction – it was not 600,000 men killed, gain nil, but 600,000 officers and men killed. Joan replied saying she had done the officers the honour of calling them men.

Grassington Players’ production is directed by former theatre professional Paula Vickers who first performed in the play with Skipton Little Theatre when she was 14. The lasting impression it made has been the driving force behind her passion for the production. She explains “I am honoured to have the opportunity to bring this wonderful piece of theatre to the Grassington stage. It is a tribute to all those who lived through this most horrific and pitiful of wars and celebrates the tenacity of the human spirit. From a personal point of view I wanted to stage it as a tribute to my step father James Birdsall who always wanted to produce it, and in honour of good friends who would have loved to be part of this show but are sadly no longer with us.”

Paula has pulled together a strong cast of seasoned Grassington Players members along with some new faces from other companies in the area for the challenging show.

Tickets for Oh What A Lovely War are available from Grassington Hub on 01756 752222, at £8.50 before 11^th October or £10 thereafter and on the door subject to availability for the run 15^th-18^th October. Doors open at 6.45pm for the &.30pm curtain up, and audiences are invited to come early to enjoy a drink from the foyer bar whilst looking at the exhibition of local WW1 memorabilia which the local community have been involved in presenting.