REVIEW: The Christmas Truce – at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon.

“THEY say it’ll all be over by Christmas,” comments one of the Royal Warwickshire’s as his regiment heads across country for the trenches in the very early days of the 1914-18 war.

It’s November – and how wrong those words were to be!

The killing fields in France and Belgium such as Flanders – Ypres, and here at Ploegsteert Woods, saw to that...

In this centenary year of the outbreak of The Great War there shouldn’t be too much surprise that a lot of attention has been fixed on the commemoration of the Christmas truce. Plenty of media coverage, even the Sainsbury’s Christmas advert and this play...

It’s based on the brief unofficial cessation of hostilities along the Western Front. A short respite during which German and British soldiers left their trenches and met in No Man's Land. They sang carols, exchanged gifts and greetings and, in some places, they also played a game of football.

Award-winning writer Phil Porter says he had wanted to be truthful more than accurate in depicting this famous event.

He’s done a pretty good job too revealing both the humanity and the hell as Europe plunged into a dark, dark period and his considerable research ought to satisfy the majority of war historians even though he admits to taking one or two liberties. Without doubt it’s both powerful and inspirational.

The Royal Shakespeare Company has a fine reputation for providing special, if not magical offerings for the festive period and here, although they have drifted away from the fairy dust and mystique of previous productions such as Matilda and The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, they’ve still come up with a ‘muddy’ marvel.

It may not be everyone’s idea of a Christmas treat and there might be some criticism of it being a little light-hearted for the subject matter, but it’s all part of the human spirit and psyche to see a glimmer of humour in even the darkest of hours.

Porter has grafted in most parts from the spectrum of emotions - from funny to moving, and with Erica Whyman’s excellent and sensitive directional skills there are moments which make the hairs on the back of your neck stand on end. Such as the famous St Crispin’s Day speech from Shakespeare’s Henry V before the Battle of Agincourt - delivered during a morale boosting troop concert, and then the lone and haunting voice from the German trenches singing Silent Night.

Once again simple yet also imaginative staging, using minimal props such as bales of hay, wooden boxes and step-ladders take us seamlessly from the blissful days of an English village cricket match to the horrors of trench warfare.

Away from the mud and blood around shell craters and shattered trees there is a little sub-plot that emphasises the part many brave women also played just behind the lines in the Red Cross hospitals, and runs in part in similar vein to the main story in revealing that orders from on high were not always in the best interests of those below.

The tale draws a great deal on the story of Warwickshire Regiment soldier and famous local cartoonist, Captain Bruce Bairnsfather, who worked at the original Shakespeare Memorial Theatre as an electrical engineer, and Joseph Kloska plays this role with great aplomb.

Bairnsfather’s most well-known cartoon character, Old Bill, is also superbly brought to life in the play by Gerard Horan, who excellently creates a larger than life person - the seasoned solder who has been there, seen it and done it all before. And there are plenty of other fine performances too including Nick Haverson’s Leutnant Kohler.

The whole production captures the atmosphere of each event and the way the cast tackle producing a football match on stage is to be highly commended. No mean feat as they skilfullykept the ball on stage.

The truce didn’t last long. Orders from above! And it wasn’t all over by Christmas – more than four years of considerable carnage and great suffering was endured on both sides until peace eventually broke out. The Christmas Truce, which is highly charged and emotional, won’t be over as quickly either so still plenty of time to ensure you catch this erstwhile production in which common humanity revealed “they’re no different to us.”

It’s not the normal fun-for-all the family festive fare. Much would be lost on the fairly young, although I’m not totally sure considering some of the violent video games on the market, but given the sensitive way the action is handled it ought not to upset.

• The Christmas Truce opened on Saturday, November 29, 2014 and runs until Saturday, January 31, 2015.