last

night

Of this year's play, Oh What a Lovely War. After worryingly low audiences were reported, in the end we played to pretty big houses (by our standards!) sold out a couple of nights and almost full the others

It's been a tough week though, lots to do at work and then to come to the centre and do a very intense performance, getting home at almost midnight then to get up at five to do it all again!

I think we managed to make it fresh again though. When it was first put on it was so revolutionary, the first docu-drama really. Now some people who came have seen it loads of times, but they still told us they found it fresh and moving. There were people who cried in the audience and people - especially younger people - who hadn't known much about the first World War and were amazed and appalled by the statistics shown on the screen behind the pierrots putting on their jolly end of the pier entertainment

There's a lot of stuff on iplayer that's worth having a look at or a listen to if you want to find out more, including a chunk of Charles Chilton's radio show, The Long, Long Trail, which was the stimulus to Joan Littlewood to start producing this show.

He was inspired to produce his programme when he went on holiday to France and in passing thought he's find his father's grave. He didn't find a grave, just his father's name on a memorial to nearly 36,000 men who died in the second battle of Arras and simply vanished