Show watching 2: Private Peaceful

Name of the show: 'Private Peaceful'.

Date of show: 8th October, 2011.

Description of show:

• 'Private Peaceful'  is originated from a book by Michael Morpurgo, it is the story of a young teenager named Thomas Lugnut Peaceful, who tells the story in account format from the past to the present day events of his experiences of living in the village of Iddesleigh during World War I. He talks about his childhood, his brother Charlie and his love Molly. During a charge of the German lines during World War I, Thomas disobeys a direct order from Hanley and stays with Charlie while he is injured on No-man's-land. As a result Thomas is given a court martial and is accused of "Cowardice" .At dawn, Thomas is marched before the firing squad, where he dies happily singing their favourite childhood song, "Oranges and Lemons". The story ends with Thomas's execution.

• This is a one person show, the stage is set without any trappings, just a young man curled up on an old iron bedstead in a barn, awaiting execution by a firing squad.The young man is Private 'Tommo' Peaceful, and the play keeps returning to this location as his pocket watch "slowly slides away the seconds" towards the final moments of his life.

Reflection:

• This show is really powerful, I experienced flashes of his life as Tommo's story gradually unfolds during the course of the play, there is slowly an invisible bridge formed between me and Private Peaceful, I started to feel sad for him as the play goes on, I treat him as a friend as I know so much about him, he is basically sharing his life to me, but he just died after walking off the stage, just a loud "BANG!", and that symbolized his death. It really has a great impact on the audiences' mind and with such a shocking ending, they won't forget the play.

• I think making this play a 'One-Man Play', is really suitable, as one of the main aspects of this play is to share the story of Private Peaceful's life through his words from his mouth, if there are other characters in the play, it will be more complicated, and the audience may not feel as much as a single character telling his own life story to the audiences.

Conclusion:

• The show is an excellent one-man show, the ability of the actor to control his voice, tone and movement is amazing, he will just change into another completely different character in a click, very swiftly. I think it is a very important aspect for the actor of a one-man play to have to make it successful, and no wonder 'Private Peaceful' is a great one.