The Theatre Workshop The Theatre Workshop was created by a group of actors committed to a left wing ideology.

Directed by Joan Littlewood they devised and commissioned plays by and about the working class in the UK. They experimented with physical approaches to characterisation drawing on the work of Rudolf Laban and drew many of their actors from non-theatrical backgrounds. In 1953 Theatre Workshop moved to the derelict Theatre Royal in Stratford East, London. The actors lived in the dressing rooms and slowly redecorated the theatre between rehearsals. The most famous Theatre Workshop production was the 1963 play Oh What a Lovely War! which eventually transferred to the West End and then Broadway. Despite a run of successful West End transfers from the Theatre Royal, Stratford East in the 1960s the theatre had to fight off the developers who tried to demolish it in the early 1970s. The theatre is currently run by Philip Hedley and still has a strong community focus and is committed to promoting new and multi-cultural work.

Oh What lovely War Joan Littlewood & Theatre Workshop

composed by Joan Littlewood, with her fellow artists in Theatre Workshop, London Joan Littlewood's musical entertainment Oh! What a Lovely War research by Gerry Raffles & Charles Chilton title suggested by Ted Allan In 1914 when the Army came to town they wanted just one thing - YOU! By 1918, millions of new recruits had left their homes and families and never returned. Eighty years later, a battalion of actors and musicians tell their story. From within a custom-made big top, a cast of colourful characters swap hats, helmets and sides to give a vibrant and touching account of the four years that shaped the twentieth century. So pack up your troubles and take your seats for an exhilarating expos of an unforgettable moment in history.

Featuring the songs 'Keep the Home Fires Burning', 'It's a Long Way to Tipperary' and 'Goodbye-ee'.

OH, WHAT A LOVELY WAR traces WWI through a series of surreal set pieces, alternating between the front lines in France and the English homefront, where generals and diplomats conduct a distant war that is actually waged by the young and poor. In particular, the film focuses on the Smith family, whose sons, seduced into the service in the carnival atmosphere of Brighton, all end up dying for their country. Meanwhile, the sacrifices of the British aristocracy, as embodied by Eleanor (Susannah York) and Stephen (Dirk Bogarde), are limited to boycotting German wine. Against a backdrop that includes flashing neon messages and a cricket scoreboard that keeps tally of the war's casualties, a series of musical numbers from 1914-18 are performed and given a distinctly antiwar slant that won considerable support from the British Left for this film and its inspiration, Joan Littlewood's 1963 stage adaptation of Charles Chilton's radio play "The Long, Long Trail." The rights to the play were purchased by producer Brian Duffy and novelist Len Deighton, the latter of whom had his name taken off the film before its release because of differences with Attenborough. OH, WHAT A LOVELY WAR is not a flawless film but is thoughtful and enthralling.

Field Marshal Haig

Douglas Haig was born on June 19 1861, the son of a wealthy whiskey distiller, he was educated at Oxford and Sandhurst. Haig participated in the Omdurman campaign (1897 - 1898) and the Boer War (1899 - 1902). His rank remained inspector of general cavalry in India from 1903 until 1906, when he became director of military training at the war office. In 1909 he became chief of staff of the Indian army. At the beginning of World War One in 1914, Haig commanded the first Army Corps.
In December of 1915 questions were being raised about how well the war was being fought. On the 10 th December a new commander of the British was appointed - Douglas Haig. At 54, he had a long a successful military career behind him. Even with his experience though, trench warfare was a new form of fighting, so he faced a difficult task. In February 1916, Germany began a campaign against the French at Verdun. Five months passed, 700,000 men had become casualties, and the French were only just hanging on. The British decided they had to relieve the pressure on the French. The British high command, led by Haig began a major attack along the line of the river Somme; he hoped to lure the Germans away from Verdun. After another five months the British had captured little land. On the 18 Nov 1916, in the blizzards and snow Haig called a halt to the attack. Haig earned the title Butcher of the Somme, after he unnecessarily sent thousands of British troops to their deaths, and because the battle of the Somme was one of the bloodiest of the First World War, more British soldiers had been killed than in any other battle before it. He died in London on January 28th 1928. Haig said many intriguing things during his life, here are some of them: Success in battle depends mainly on morale and determination. 1907 The way to capture machine guns is by grit and determination. 1915 The machine gun is a much over rated weapon - 1915 The nation must be taught to bear losses. No amount of skill on the part of the higher commanders, no training, however good, on the part of the officers and men, no superiority of arms and ammunition, however great, will enable victories to be won without the sacrifice of mens lives. The nation must be prepared to see heavy casualty lists. Written by Haig in June 1916 before the battle began. All Info found at: performingzone.starlightstudiographics.co.uk/OhWhataLovelyWar.doc

Oh What A Lovely War! Was created/written/devised by Joan Littlewood and her Theatre Workshop, created in 1963, which was itself inspired by "The Donkeys," Alan Clark's 1961 attack on Great War generalship. The title is derived from the music hall song Oh! It's a Lovely War, which is one of the major numbers in the productions. In 1969 Richard Attenborough directed a cinematic adaptation of the musical.
www.Wikipedia.org

Oh What a Lovely War

Clwyd Theatr Cymru , Theatr Clwyd, Mold , February 10, 2003 THERE could hardly have been a more appropriate time for a revival of Joan Littlewood's savage and poignant satire, Oh! What a Lovely War. While the world waits on the brink of major conflict, Littlewood's 1960s musical indictment of the horror, pity and sheer waste of man taking up arms against man is both chilling and timely. Set in an early 20th-century pierrot show, complete with hammy turns and hackneyed songs, it rapidly moves from comedy to pathos with a re-enactment of war games to show how World War I began and developed. National stereotypes are evoked, jingoistic emotions are played on, and what begins as a comic promenade in a Sarajevo park, where a shot rings out, moves into mass mobilisation and unimaginable slaughter. Littlewood, who died last September (2002), based the show on a series of authentic World War I songs recorded by the BBC in the early '60s, but added her own unique ingredients in the form of satire and irony.

Oh, What a Lovely War

Theatre St. Thomas March 2000 When Oh, What a Lovely War was first produced, its virulent, aggressive anti-war stance was deliciously scandalous. Audiences associated the noholds-barred assault on all the old clichs about valor, and king and country, with all the dramatic social changes accompanying the youth rebellion of the sixties, as a whole generation of young people scandalized their parents and rejected their values. Scenes like the one where the newly minted millionaire war profiteers talk about disposing of surplus population -- a generation was beginning to feel the threat of the rising tide of war in Viet Nam -- had an immediate, personal resonance that, here in the oughts of the new millennium, we perhaps don't feel quite as immediately. Similarly, the audience in London in 1964 included lots of people who remembered the old songs, remembered the optimistic headlines (and the reports of unprecedented and unimaginable numbers of casualties), and for whom the casual irreverence of the show's attitude toward the generals and civilians who sent a generation of young men off to the slaughterhouse of Ypres and the Somme was a sensuous, violent shock, a sudden douse in a cold shower. All these circumstances meant that a show which had no particular immediate human focus, no continuing character we could come to care about, no story to speak of, and no real resolution, could be powerful (and immensely successful) in spite of the handicaps, simply because of the immense static charge between its subject and the society around it.