In it together: our community play about World War One in rural England

Henry (Nick Wray) and George (Charles Johnson)

It's Sunday afternoon, it's pouring, and I'm exhausted. But I'm elated too, because we've just put on three shows of our community play. We created a story about a village like ours during the First World War, and it's been a truly amazing experience.

Amazing because:

we pulled it off - we told a familiar story that held our audiences' attention from the first chords to the last song

we made our audiences laugh and weep

and then they rushed to tell us what a pleasure it had been

it was a truly collective endeavour - almost sixty of us came together to create our play

The Morris dancers (Colleen Thirkell, Molly Byford, Jan Batchelor and Sue Harrison)

and people gave up their winter evenings and weekends to learn lines, rehearse, make music, source fresh pheasants, rig up lights, bake cakes, find a hundred year old wheelchair ...

and we sold out three shows

and, and, and ...

I'm a bit overwhelmed by what we achieved, but fundamentally, what I'm going to remember for a long time is that this may have been just a play, but it was a play about something really serious, and everyone in the room - audience and players - knew it.

Len (Oliver Hulme), Lily (Melanie Byford), Isabella (Sarah Saxty), Frank (Steven James),  Henry, Rose (Annabel Hunt), Robert (Eric Parker), John (Charlie Crisp) and Hester (Ana Garcia)

A hundred years ago, people just like us were flung into four years of horror and fear that none were prepared for. When I started to write the script what interested me most was what happened between people. We all know the facts of the war, but what did it feel like to a young woman whose fiancé comes home on leave unable to speak about anything he's been through since they parted? How did a bereaved father deal with his son's friend who's refused to fight? What did a young man who has seen his mates killed one after the other have in his head when the old men in the pub clapped him on the shoulder for doing his duty?

What caught me unawares were the people who came up to me, separately, after the shows. One was a mother of soldiers who has set up a support group for veterans. Another was a retired Navy officer. The third, a serving Major in the Army. They each thanked us for showing what it's like to fight, and to return home with that experience inside you.

And then there were the villagers who felt that this story was part of them too, because the people in it were people just like us. I'm so glad we got it right.


(All photos are by Rowan Purkis.)