Theatre review: For King and Country

A First World War scandal that still resonates is the treatment of British deserters, hundreds of whom were executed for cowardice after incidents of what we would now identify as PTSD, and who were only formally pardoned as recently as 2006. So John Wilson’s 1964 hit, which was later filmed, would seem a play that could still hit a nerve today, but unfortunately Paul Tomlinson’s production almost seems to go out of its way to demonstrate why For King and Country has lain neglected for the last 30 years. Private Hamp (Adam Lawrence) has been caught casually trying to leave the Western Front and been brought in front of a Court Martial. One of the few surviving members of his platoon after four years in the trenches, getting trapped in a bomb crater for several hours triggered a sudden change in behaviour, and with Shell Shock starting to be recognised as a real thing, Lieutenant Hargreaves (Lloyd Everitt) thinks he’s spotted a real instance of it.

Theatre review: Hindle Wakes

"It isn't fair, but it's usual." Stanley Houghton's story of the small industrial Lancashire town of Hindle, where three families are trying to avoid scandal, has been seen as a classic proto-feminist play, and apparently when first produced Hindle Wakes proved controversial. Given a fairly light-hearted revival at the Finborough Theatre by Bethan Dear, it's still possible to see how it could have put people's backs up in 1912, with its cheeky asides about the suffragettes amid a surprisingly modern attitude to female sexuality. When the friend who was meant to provide her alibi meets with a tragic accident, Fanny's (Ellie Turner) weekend away with mill owner's son Alan Jeffcote (Graham O'Mara) is exposed. If word gets out that Fanny's a "ruined woman" nobody will marry her, so her father Christopher (Peter Ellis) is dispatched to get Alan to do the "decent thing." But there's a complication as Alan's long been engaged to another woman.