Oh, What a Lovely War is an epic musical developed by Joan Littlewood and her ensemble at the Theatre Workshop in 1963.] It is a satire on World War I and by extension on war in general.
Oh, What a Lovely War is an epic musical developed by Joan Littlewood and her ensemble at the Theatre Workshop in 1963.] It is a satire on World War I and by extension on war in general. The title is derived from the even more satirical music hall song Oh! It's a Lovely War, which is one of the major numbers in the production. The idea came about on Armistice Day 1962 when Gerry Raffles heard Charles Chilton's radio musical for the BBC Home Service, called The Long Long Trail about World War I. Written and produced by Chilton in memory of his father whose name was inscribed on the memorial at Arras, the piece was a radio documentary that used facts and statistics, juxtaposed with reminiscences and versions of songs of the time, as an ironic critique of the reality of the war. The songs were found in a book published in 1917 called Tommy's Tunes which had new lyrics written in the trenches to well-known songs of the era, many from hymns or from West End shows. Bud Flanagan provided the voice of the ordinary soldier in the radio broadcast. Raffles proposed the idea of using it as the basis of a production to his partner, Joan Littlewood, but she detested the idea, hating World War I, military uniforms, and everything they stood for. Gerry though, brought Chilton along to the theatre and they played through the songs. Eventually Littlewood considered it might work, but refused any military uniforms, deciding on costumes in Commedia dell’ arte style as a soft, fluffy entertainment mode providing an ironic contrast to the tin hats which they also wore. Littlewood said, in 1995, that Nobody died on my stage, they died in the film. She wanted audiences to leave the theatre laughing at the vulgarity of war. The idea was to portray how groups of people could lose their sense of individuality by conforming to those of a higher authority, which Littlewood despised. The original production was performed with the cast in pierrot costumes and contained powerful numerous anti-war feelings. In another production harsh images of war and shocking statistics are projected onto the backdrop, providing a contrast with the comedy of the action taking place before it. Projected slides showing images from the war and a moving display described at the time as an electronic newspaper portraying slogans such as Sept 25 - British lose 8,236 men in 3 hours, German lose nil and Average life of a machine gunner under attack on the Western Front: 4 minutes. The audience were also invited to join in with singing the songs, separating the performers from the actual events in this way stopped the audience collapsing into tears. The production featured many World War I-era songs such as It's a Long Way to Tipperary, Pack up Your Troubles and Keep the Home Fires Burning. The song itself, Oh, It’s a Lovely War was written by J. P. Long and Maurice Scott in 1917.
