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'I had always longed that artists might have their proper recognition as a great arm of National Service...' Lena Ashwell (1922) More than 600 performers signed up for a tour of duty with The Lena Ashwell YMCA Concert Parties between 1914 and 1919. They played whatever and wherever was needed, in freezing tents and packed huts, on ships at sea, and at the bedsides of the dying. Among them were Ivor Novello, heartthrob composer of ?Keep the Home Fires Burning' and Elsie Griffin, the Fry's Chocolate Factory girl for whom ?Danny Boy' and ?Roses of Picardy' were written. Inspired by archives and recently discovered private notebooks, theatre-makers Anna Farthing and Bea Roberts have dramatised shattered fragments from the lives of those who toured to theatres of war, striving to bring the harmony of home to soldiers reeling from the cacophony of battle. Expect drama, music and comedy from a company of actor-musicians trained at the Conservatoire for Dance and Drama.

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2014 (1 listings)