Private Peaceful

By Robert Iles - 23rd Sep 2005

Michael Morpurgo's Private Peaceful, as adapted for the stage by Simon Reade, is a powerful piece of drama. A solo piece in which the actor plays both Private Peaceful and all the people who influence his life; a life both short and, finally, tragic.

Private Peaceful, Tommo, joins the army in 1915 to fight in Europe alongside his older brother. He suffers the trauma of fighting at the front and is moved to the Ypers salient where they go over the top. Injured himself and caring for his dying brotehr he calls an order to continue the charge into a machine gun position 'suicidal' and, although he is proved right, he is court martialled for cowadice. We meet him for his last night, waiting to be shot at dawn, as he relives his life.

Actually, it is not so much the script that conveys the horrors of war it is following Private Peaceful's reactions to the situations he finds himself in and the things he sees and experiences. Through him we hope to see all fighting men, but perhaps particularly those many, many underage soldiers who signed up to fight for their country. The military establishment knew that they were there, knew who they were, but rarely let them go home. As the programme points out, some 290 soldiers were shot for cowardice, some merely for falling asleep at their posts, but probably all as a result of shll shock and mental collapse - most civilised countries have now pardoned their soldiers, ours has chosen not to. Many of these men had already fought bravely on previous occasions but could just not continue. I have visited Ypers on several occasions and even now, 90 years after these events, it gives me the shivers; the clinging mud, the groups of graves, the live shells still being dug up each week by farmers.

Back to the play ...

Alexander Campbell plays Tommo and manages to make both him and the host of other characters trully credible. I found the production very moving, though perhaps a little 'soft' but there were a lot of children in the audience, something I hope will happen throughout its tour, so perhaps this softness was appropriate. A difficult piece well executed ....

Robert Iles