Birdsong – A Musical, Moving Masterpiece

The Courtyard’s marketing team went to Bristol Old Vic to meet some of the cast and to see Birdsong before it comes to The Courtyard from 8 – 13 June.

For those of you who have read the book and loved it, you won’t be disappointed as Alistair Whatley’s Directed version is true to Sebastian Faulks’ words from this best selling novel. The atmosphere and set were perfect as the lights went down to start the first half.

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If you are not familiar with the play, most of the story takes place before the battle of the Somme through the eyes of Stephen who is a Sergeant in the trenches, and Firebrace (Peter Duncan) who digs the holes under the trenches and how their different worlds come together through the love of loved ones back home. Throughout the play we see flashbacks of Stephen’s forbidden love for the married middle class, Isabelle, who lives a very restrained and repressed life before Stephen comes along.

The show is a roller coaster of emotions, as it opens lively and jolly with a song and some dancing, which then moves to some harsh realities of World War One trench warfare. The set works perfectly well and does a great job of working in present, but also through memory.Special mention has to go James Findlay for the haunting folk style singing and music throughout the production to set the tone of the shocking realities of life in the trenches.

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The whole cast were brilliant. Peter Ducan (Blue Peter) was wonderful with his believable qualities of what life was like in the trenches.

If you haven’t got your tickets yet, get them before it is too late as this show is a musical, moving masterpiece.