Following sold-out UK tours in 2016 and 2017, and a critically acclaimed hit run at the Arts Theatre in the West End in 2017, The Wipers Times will once again tour the UK this Autumn. It opens at Nottingham Theatre Royal on 28 August 2018, and visits Oxford, Exeter, Malvern, Leicester, Eastbourne and Birmingham before returning to the Arts Theatre in London for a 7 week season. Full tour dates at www.wiperstimesplay.co.uk with casting to be announced.
Ian Hislop and Nick Newman’s The Wipers Times – a stage adaptation of their award-winning BBC film – tells the true and extraordinary story of the satirical newspaper created in the mud and mayhem of the Somme, interspersed with comic sketches and spoofs from the vivid imagination of those on the front line.
Ian Hislop and Nick Newman said:
“The Wipers Times is on manoeuvres again around Britain. We look forward to sharing the remarkable trench humour of the Wipers Times with new theatre-goers around the country. We are delighted it is not Journey’s End but the tour will all be over by Christmas. “
In a bombed out building during the First World War in the Belgian town of Ypres (mispronounced Wipers by British soldiers), two officers discover a printing press and create a newspaper for the troops. Far from being a somber journal about life in the trenches they produced a resolutely cheerful, subversive and very funny newspaper designed to lift the spirits of the men on the frontline.
Defying enemy bombardment, gas attacks and the disapproval of many of the top Brass, The Wipers Times rolled off the press for two years and was an extraordinary tribute to the resilience of the human spirit in the face of overwhelming adversity.
The production originally launched one hundred years after the Battle of the Somme and publication of The Wipers Times. This current run coincides with the commemoration of the end of WW1.
The Wipers Times is directed by Caroline Leslie, designed by Dora Schweitzer, with lighting design by James Smith, sound design by Steve Mayo. The composer is Nick Green, and Musical Director Paul Herbert. It is produced by Bob Benton & David Parfitt.
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