Six WWI Plays: No Man's Land

Paul King

38 / 3083Paper-based / ePackNov 13
ISBN: Paper-based 978 1 85749 882 0; ePack 978 1 84070 907 0

• Challenging and topical
• Written for school drama groups
• Suitable for all-female casts

An ideal topic for drama

As the centenary of World War I approaches, students will be readily engaged by stories of how people from all parts of society were affected. Six WWI Plays: No Man’s Land focuses on the varied experiences of women during the war, providing a slightly unusual take on the topic and at the same time giving female students an array of engaging and challenging parts.

World War I provides fertile subject matter for drama, with obvious cross-curricular links to history and citizenship. Although the setting is historical, students will also be able to find many parallels with today’s global events.

Readily adaptable

These six plays are the newest addition to the perennially popular GCSE Plays series and, like the others, are all of an appropriate length for GCSE or BTEC drama performances and ideal for adaptation and exploration. All six plays can be performed by all-female casts, but boys can be included as well and one play in particular has several prominent male roles.

All ten scripts have been written with GCSE drama specifically in mind, and also work well with KS3 students. Stage directions are kept to a minimum, encouraging students to think creatively about what techniques and staging to use.

The six plays are:

• The Canary Girls – The story of Emily, a young working-class woman, who leaves home for the first time to work in a munitions factory in London.
• Victim Always Dies – Victoria leaves her middle-class home and volunteers as a nurse. Members of the VAD or Voluntary Aid Detachment were called ‘Vads’. Soldiers however invented their own nicknames for the Vads, including the derisory ‘Victim Always Dies’.
• Patriotism Is Not Enough – On the morning of 11 October 1915, Edith Cavell, a British nurse, was executed by the German authorities for spying. The play tells the story of her final three days.
• Sylvia and Christabel – Sylvia and Christabel Pankhurst are best known for leading the women’s suffrage movement. What is less well known are the vastly differing roles they had in World War I. Christabel was avidly pro-war, while Sylvia was a committed pacifist and social activist. This play tells that story.
• The Turnip Winter – The story of a young Berlin woman’s attempt to survive the years of starvation brought about by Britain’s naval blockade, showing how modern war affects civilians on all sides.
• The Telegram Girl – The true story of an ordinary woman who led a remarkable life, based on a recording of her memories made for the Imperial War Museum.

Performance rights are included in the price, and putting a number of the plays together on one evening can make an interesting alternative to the usual school play.

Contents

• The Canary Girls
• Victim Always Dies
• Patriotism Is Not Enough
• Sylvia and Christabel
• The Turnip Winter
• The Telegram Girl