Birdsong - Lighthouse, Poole

It follows the progress of Stephen Wraysford’s illicit love affair with a married woman in pre-war France, interlaced with trench scenes as he and his men face the horrors of war.

I confess I have never read the book, and without that mental backdrop to fill in the gaps, the constant time-shifting is jarring at first. But some very clever staging works hard to overcome that- and it needs to. As the action flips from the trenches, to a picnic by the river, to the tunnels under no man’s land, the shifting lighting, clever set, and especially the sound effects - the distant boom of drums, torso vibrating explosions or, of course, birdsong – are all relied on to transform the space. A cappella singing by the cast is also effectively used to underscore the emotion at points.

Edmund Wiseman is quietly compelling in the lead, depicting his character’s emotional trajectory from keen youth, to hardened, detached officer, to damaged and bone-weary survivor. But for me the emotional heart of the play are the relationships between the men on the battlefield – not the love story, with its highly choreographed and somewhat awkward lovemaking scene.

Some of the exchanges involving Sapper Jack Firebrace, played by one-time Blue Peter presenter Peter Duncan, ring truest. His friendship with fellow tunneller Arthur, particularly in the scene where Jack receives a letter revealing the death of his young son, is especially poignant.

The play gathers emotional momentum throughout, carried along by strong performances and hard-working staging, and assisted enormously in the second half by some continuity of time and place, it reaches its moving peak as Stephen and Jack are trapped together in the battlefield tunnels. Here Stephens words ‘never again’ cut to the heart for an audience who have seen the horrors of war brought to life, and know how history plays out.