Threadbare Theatre Company’s production of World war one plays will be performing at Theatre Royal Brighton Feb 2017. They will then be embarking on a HLF funded project working with an Oxted community group to bring together a show specifically looking at boys returning from the war, that will perform at the end of 2017 and into 2018 to mark the end of the war/ What was life like for these boys returning and trying to adjust to life back in dear old Blighty?

Following huge success at the national commemoration of the Somme centenary in Manchester, Threadbare continue to work closely wqith Dr Helen Brooke’s of Kent University to bring more forgotten plays from the Great war back to life. For their Brighton show they will be retaining the incredibly popular The Boy Comes Home by A.A.Milne, and adding a play by Peter Pan author J.M.Barrie, A New Word, which is entirely new to their repertoire.

Written in March of 1915 A New Word, paints a funny and poignant picture of a family the night before their 19 year-old son leaves to join the army. The war is 8 months old. Rogie comes down to show his parents how he looks in his uniform for the first time. His mother fusses, while his father hides his worries in his evening paper. Rogie’s trunk has been packed full of enough knitting “to fit up my whole platoon” and he leaves on the 5:20am train the following day. What words could be spoken at such a time? But speak they do and the words leap across more than 100 years, the humanity of the piece feeling as relevant today as it was then. A voice from 100 years ago moves us to laughter and tears of recognition at the difficulty of loving and letting go – in the most extreme of times.

The New Word and the two plays it accompanies provide a fascinating insight into the experience of war for the men fighting as well as those left at home. With a mixture of humour and pathos these plays explore timeless issues: loss and fear, hope and pride, masculinity, generational difference, and questioning faith in times of darkness.

For tour dates and venues, or if you have a venue and are interested in hosting this show, please contact Threadbare Theatre Company directly or subscribe to our mailing list by emailing threadbaretheatrecompany@yahoo.co.uk