The RSC's winter season contributing to the World War I centenary even takes in the family Christmas show; and where
Love's Labour's Lost and
Won take us either side of the war, Phil Porter's
The Christmas Truce puts us in the thick of it. Part of the inspiration was a local Stratford celebrity
other than the usual one:
Bruce Bairnsfather was an electrician who helped set up the electrics of the original Shakespeare Memorial Theatre, and lit some early productions. But once war broke out he became famous for a different talent, as the comic cartoons he submitted to magazines became hugely popular. He was considered such a morale-booster that once injured he wasn't allowed to return to the front, so he could keep the nation's spirits up writing full-time. But before that he was also present at an event at Christmas 1914 that would become legendary.
