|
DUGOUT! The Little Herberts
This is work was created by thirty three young people over a period
of eighteen months. It was performed every time we met and it was
as if for real. We met in groups of between eight and twelve people
at a time and we met for three days at a time and sometimes just
one day.
You had to be really brave to do it.
It drew on survival reality tv programmes but this wasn't not tv
this was history and theatre repeating themselves and reinventing
themselves.
"We are in Mr Whissell and Mrs Williams' Home
Front Training Camp and we are being tested to see if we have World
War 2 survival skills. Graham Sutherland is there drawing us.
First we work in gallery one which has been turned into a kind of
aircraft hanger/factory shop floor/canteen.
Then we go to Whitefriars Monastery where Sergeant West has his
hideout and Miss Thompson is a spy in captivity.
We experience the blackout, air raids, rationing, factory work,
rebuilding, spies, double agents, home guard training, the enemy
in the camp, the careless corner and finally a peace conference.
Eventually we make a film to show other young people and to recruit
them for the next training camp."
|
