Teachers' notes - Oh What a Lovely War

ArtisanCam Performance helps teachers deliver a creative curriculum at Key Stage 2 and 3 Oh What a Lovely War was originally created in London in 1963 by the maverick director Joan Littlewood and her company Theatre Workshop. The play is a truly original portrait of the First World War which changed the world for ever. Oh What a Lovely War is a satirical musical which highlights the ironies and tragedies of the First World War in stories and songs. Twelve musicians, dancers, singers and clowns tell the entire story of the war and sing all the songs. The play includes a collection of irreverent and poignant songs such as‘Pack Up Your Troubles’, ‘Keep The Home Fires Burning’ and ‘It’s A Long Way To Tipperary’ Northern Stage cast - JOANNA CROLL VICKY ELLIOTT HELEN EMBLETON KAREN FISHER-POLLARD ROBERT HANDS GARY KITCHING TAREK MERCHANT SAM O’MAHONY-ADAMS THOMAS PADDEN CHRISTOPHER PRICE THEONE RASHLEIGH JON TRENCHARD Co-Directors – ERICA WHYMAN & SAM KENYON Designer – ANGELA SIMPSON Lighting Design – CHARLES BALFOUR Choreographer – SIAN WILLIAMS . The play is recomended 12+ The ArtisanCam Performance Oh What a Lovely War project involved Year 7 and Yr 10 pupils watching original archive video clips of the songs of the Frist World war and producing their own short performances in response. Each group worked with Northern Stage drama worker Paula Penman to develop their skills before the songs were filmed in front of a greenscreen and edited. The young people then watched the professional performance by Northern Stage cast and reviewed that production to camera. The project was delivered by Artistsatwork.org the producers of the award winning ArtisanCam website for schools. We hope to extend the content on this site by adding more of your performances. The notes on this page may help.

If you want to have a go at this activity in your school these notes will assist you.

Archive video clips of the sogs of the First World War

There are five archive video clips of the songs of the First World War and some original stills and film footage. All the songs feayured are in the script of the play Oh What a Lovely War including the title song. Goodbye-ee, Gassed last Night, Pack up Your Troubles and Keep the Home Fires Burning.

The clips of the Northern Stage production Oh What a Lovely War

Oh What a Lovely War Northern Stage production was directed by Erica Whyman and Sam Kenyon. The play runs for 2 hours and 30 minutes and was filmed during a performance at Northen Stage in Newcastle 2010. The first clip is an introduction to the play and all other clips are the casts version of the songs featured in the Archive section.

The review clips

These reviews are by young people from schools in Newcastle and they talk about the play as well as their experiences of producing their own short perfromances inspired by the archive video clips.

The your performance clips

These video clips are of performances by young people from schools in Newcastle inspired by watching the archive video clips of the songs of the First World War on ArtisanCam Performance. They were filmed in front of a greenscreen at Northern Stage.

The Directors View clips

These video clips are extracts from an interview with Erica Whyman, one of the two directors of Oh What a Lovely War. She talks about the difficulties and pleasures of being a director and of the particular problems this play creates.

You can produce your own performances, with or without greenscreen and send them to ArtisanCam Performance for inclusion on the site. To submit video simply click on the Upload icon. Please make all video clips shorter than 2 minutes and less than 3Mb file size. You can also contact us with enquires by using that email and we will do our best to answer your questions.

Some background information about the First World War.

In 1914, Europe embarked on one of the most complicated, ill-fated and bloody wars that the world had ever seen. By 1916, it involved most of the world. By the time it ended in November 1918 it had overthrown four Empires, given birth to seven new nations, taken over 10 million lives (another 30 million were wounded), and cost about £35,000 million.

Some background information about the play.

Synopsis. Oh What a Lovely War.

Oh What A Lovely War was created in 1963 and premiered 19th March at the Theatre Royal Stratford East. It was a noted satire, specifically in reaction to the First World War but also relating to the topic of war in general, and so it remains very relevant especially with the news stories of today. Its groundbreaking unique style, with the combination of various different styles of theatre, members of the cast playing multiple roles and the classification of it as an ‘epic musical’, a play which has the goal of always making the audience aware that they’re watching a play, brought high regard from both audiences and critics.

The title of the play is derived from a music hall number from 1917 which features actually within the show. Joan Littlewood was partly inspired by the controversial military history book ‘The Donkeys’ (the title from the phrase ‘lions led by donkeys’, widely used to compare British soldiers to their commanders) by Alan Clark. The book was a revisionist history of the British Expeditionary Force’s campaigns at the beginning of WW1 (during 1915) and was very critical of the BEF, leading to the play’s mirroring pacifist view. In the end, Littlewood’s production was a surprise hit, and was adapted for radio by BBC several times, leading to its transfer to Broadway in 1964 which earned 4 Tony award nominations.

The play is usually performed in pierrot costumes, embodying a stock character of mime, the sad clown, who embodies naïveté and is seen as a fool, and more importantly for Littlewood’s theme – oblivious to reality. In fact, the production constantly plays with the contrast between reality and the madcap action of the clowns: real songs from WW1 are featured throughout the show but harsh images of war and shocking statistics projected onto backdrop at the same time.
However, despite the play’s popularity, there have been some objections to its subject matter.

At the time of writing, government files about WW1 were still restricted by the ‘Fifty Year Rule’ so things like Oh What A Lovely War and its predecessors had to rely on sources produced between the wars which contained a lot of controversies. Consequently, critics have argued that although Littlewood may have inaccurately emphasised certain aspects, the nostalgia evoked by the music hall style and soldiers’ songs ensured the play’s success. Despite this, it was adapted into a very successful musical film in 1969 by Richard Attenborough, attracting a weighty cast including names Dirk Bogarde, John Gielgud, John Mills, Kenneth More, Laurence Olivier, Jack Hawkins, Corin Redgrave, Michael Redgrave, Vanessa Redgrave, Ralph Richardson, Maggie Smith, and Ian Holm.