STAGE REVIEW: The Wipers Times - at the Festival Theatre, Malvern, from Monday, September 17 to Saturday, September 22, 2018.

THERE happens to be a couple of truly incredible things about this play which make it somewhat special as we move closer to the 100th anniversary of the cessation of hostilities in The Great War.

Not only is it based on true events from that conflict, it also reveals that the Tommies in the trenches made light, or at least attempted to make light, of what cruel hand fate had dealt them with typical British stoicism and humour.

Soldiers have always used dark humour as a way of coping with the grim realities of war and here it is the men of the 12th Battalion Sherwood Foresters.

Ian Hislop and Nick Newman’s work - originally a television play - explores this attitude to life and death, the latter of which was never far away - and how that indefatigable spirit in the trenches ran alongside that wonderful gallows humour which found a particular and perfect outlet thanks to the discovery in a shell-ravaged building of an old printing press.

It led to them setting up a Punch-style publication which poked fun at the war and the Army’s ‘top brass’ under the banner of The Wipers Times, and it really helped raise the spirits and morale of thousands but irked those in command.

Why Wipers? Well the men had considerable trouble with the name of the Belgian town where they found the press - continually mispronouncing Ypres as Wipers.

Hislop, who is editor of the satirical magazine Private Eye and a regular on television’s Have I Got News For You, has - together with Newman, clearly felt an affinity to those soldiers of yesteryear in that they have captured the quintessential characteristics of the troops in the use of such humour as a coping mechanism and they also know all the ins-and-outs of providing entertaining puns, parodies, poems, jokes and cartoons.

The actual story unfolds as the newspaper’s editor, Fred Roberts, who had been Captain Roberts, struggles to find a job in post-war Fleet Street.

Much of the action depicts him and his fellow officer Jack Pearson running the newspaper as Editor and Deputy.

“Will it be a bit like the Daily Mail?” says someone. “I was thinking of something rather more accurate,” replies Roberts.

And so the first barb was launched… and the WT then set about upsetting those in high command towards whom the common soldier felt a fair bit of resentment with some justification.

Caroline Leslie’s skilful control of proceedings ensures a steady flow through the delivery of the paper’s production as it links into military moments of death or glory and some quite bizarre music hall interventions.

All is underpinned with the message that humour is a saviour amongst the futility of what caused the men to be there.

James Dutton’s Roberts and George Kemp’s Lieutenant Pearson provide fine performances which reveal a special bond and camaraderie about their relationship, and they are well backed by other cast members.

There’s particularly strong support from Dan Mersh as the ever-practical sergeant with a knack for producing vital items, Sam Ducane as Lieutenant Colonel Howfield - the paper’s main antagonist who is reminiscent of the pompous brass in the final Blackadder series, and not forgetting Chris Levens as the hapless Private Dodd.

Overall it’s an extraordinary war story although perhaps not quite the truly powerful drama which it could be with a few tweaks but still immensely watchable.

It also forces a tendency to draw comparisons - with visions in the mind - of Journey’s End, Birdsong, also Joan Littlewood’s most entertaining Oh What a Lovely War and, of course, the epic and outstanding War Horse.

This too has its place in the salute for those who fought and lived, and of course those who gallantly died, and it totally deserves to line up alongside such fitting tributes to the men who endured such a terrible time as they served their King and country.

** The Wipers Times was first published in February 1916 and the final issue in December 1918.