Theatre South East

Relating to something that happened 100 years ago isn’t easy but a brand new musical production based on the true story of a First World War hero is helping audiences to do just that. This original production brought audiences of all ages to their feet, and moved many to tears, when it premiered at the Assembly Hall Theatre, Tunbridge Wells, in October. Combining heart-rending music and lyrics with factual narration,

The Dreamers sees the Great War through the eyes of the soldiers and the families that they left behind.

In words and music by unknown young writers, The Dreamers brings a fresh approach to the little known story of Captain David ‘Reggie’ Salomons, who led his men to the battlefields of Gallipoli in 1915 and suffered a tragic accident.

With a 6 piece contemporary band ‘Virgin Soldiers’, a cast of 20 young men and women, and on-screen narration from Amanda Redman, Christopher Beeny and Sir Tim Rice, this is a unique piece of theatre.

 

As they prepare for their July residency at the St James Theatre in London, I spoke to writers James Beeny and Gina Giorgio together with the youngest member of the cast, 12 year old Harvey Young, to find out first hand how they manage to connect with a story that happened so long before they were born.

 

James explained that, “When it’s your Grandfather, or someone in your family, who lived through a tragedy, although quite often they rarely talk about the horror of what actually happened, I think that you can get that bit closer to the story but as soon as it’s a Great-Grandfather, or someone that maybe you never met because they died long before you were born, then it gets so distant that it just feels like history, and that was the problem that we had from the very start.”

 

“We, sort of, stumbled across the story that has become the show and we discovered that, the more we looked into it, the more we connected with it. There were certain ways that we developed to get us closer to the story and that was really quite necessary because, although I am only 28, what I remember from school is a bit hazy and World War One and Two seem, in my mind, to blur together.”

 

Gina added that, “The thing that we came to terms with first was the sheer scale of the horror of that war. A million people died in one day and, overall, 16 million people were killed or injured and really, no matter how hard you try, it’s impossible to actually visualise that. When people talk about huge numbers of people they often compare them to the number of people in a football stadium, but how many Old Trafford’s would it take to hold 16 million people?”

 

I next turned to Harvey and asked, as he is only 12, how does he relate to the story that he performs?

 

He told me, “Well, I think what really helps me is that my Nanny’s Uncle fought in the Second World War and he was in one of the planes that flew over Germany, to see what was going on, and I remember her telling me stories of how he would have to dodge the bullets that were coming up through the floor of the plane and I think that, when it is made “real” like that you get more understanding.”

 

He added, “What helps me on stage is that I wear the soldier’s uniform, because people my age did fight in World War One, and, because I am someone who learns a lot more by doing something instead of just reading about it, I really feel like I’m in the middle of it and when we sing the songs that are in the show I feel the power of the music and the voices, because the words are so strong, and that is what really gets to me.”

 

I then asked Harvey how he feels about boys as young as he is, fighting a war.

 

“When they asked me if I would play a 12 year old soldier I was like, 12 years old? I mean I knew there were young soldiers but I thought maybe 15 or older would be the age but then I found out that some of the boys who fought, and who died, were just my age. I looked into it and did a lot of research before we performed the show and I was amazed that so many young people had died fighting for their country. They hadn’t really had a chance to live, or to experience so many things, when they were killed.”

 

Gina then explained how she deals with the grim reality of the story that they tell.

 

She said, “I think it was easier when we were writing the show, to know that the story we tell is a real one, but then that makes it much harder to perform. You really have to try and distance yourself because, sometimes, if you become too emotional it becomes a bit overwhelming so you always have to detach yourself, slightly, so that you can perform it.”

 

James added, “What was a challenge at first was to put ourselves in the shoes of the people at the time because, our role in the show is as a modern day band, The Virgin Soldiers, and we, sort of, commentate on the things that are happening. We sing some of the songs as ourselves but we also had to write the songs that the men would sing and as we got further and further into the story, strangely, it became easier to write the songs for the men than it was to write the songs for us to sing.”

 

“We had a sort of “awakening” while we were writing the piece when we were watching a documentary piece about the Christmas Day truce. It was late at night and we were feeling very emotional about things anyway and there was a moment when they were discussing how the troops had met in No-man’s-land on Christmas Day. We had heard about the football match, as most people do, but we found out that they also held funerals out there, with men from both sides singing and praying together as they buried the dead.”

 

“The thing that suddenly occurred to us was that a lot of these funerals were for people who had been dead or injured and dying in No-man’s-land for days without anyone to offer any form of help, but these were not just people, they were fellow soldiers, friends or maybe even relatives and we started thinking about ourselves.”

 

“We have a cast of 20 young men and women, and the band of 6 musicians, and all the men are under the age of 30, just the sort of age that would have seen us fighting in the war and we started to imagine how we would feel if we were in No-man’s-land on Christmas Day and all we could see, all around us, were the bodies of people who are so dear to us, some as young as Harvey, and, in that moment, the emotion just overtook us all and, once we started to think of our friends like that, we realised that we could connect with the story much more easily.”

 

Harvey went on to explain about the reaction of the audiences who have seen the show.

He told me, “There is a part in the play where I sit up in the corner of the stage and I try and look away from the audience in case they are crying but sometimes I have to look up and I can see them crying and that is really difficult. It’s so hard to stop yourself from crying and to be professional but, what I do, is that I think of it like a rehearsal and it’s just something that I have being doing every day for about a year, so that makes it easier.”

 

“But when my cousins and my friends came to see me they were really into the story and when they saw me getting ready with everyone else to go and get on the boat to Gallipoli they were saying to themselves, Don’t get on the boat. Please don’t get on the boat, because they knew that the boat would never make it through. They were actually crying their eyes out, and that was before anything bad happened.”

 

This is a syndicated interview.

Production Details  | The Dreamers