New play looks at impact of World War One on Sussex

Duty is about three young men and one woman in rural Sussex, set against the backdrop of the First World War: it is about friendship in extraordinary circumstances, and the very different calls to duty that they experience.

Duty runs from Thursday, May 22 to Sunday, May 25 at various times at the Lantern Theatre, 77 St James Street, Brighton. Tickets are available through the Brighton Fringe website www.brightonfringe.org or www.twilight-theatre.co.uk, priced £14 or £12 for concessions; various discounts are available including free companion tickets for carers.

Although the characters’ personal story is fictional, all of the references and surrounding pieces of information are real, says Susanne.

“It’s very important to me to honour the people who lived through those times by ensuring that all the facts around this story are true, and I’ve also made sure that the story is alive and relevant to now. There’s nothing worse than going to a dusty exhibition where things are so far removed from you that you can’t relate to them. These characters in my play are real people, with hopes and dreams for the future. Sometimes that dream is just to meet someone and fall in love and settle down. All of that changed when war broke out in 1914. It changed everything. We can’t imagine that now so I’ve written this so that people will be able to have a chance to experience what it might have been like for four ordinary working people in Sussex at that time.”

John and his mother Mags run their family farm with Joe and Harry’s help. The three men have been friends all their lives, but nothing has tested their friendship like the onset of war.

“Harry feels the call to duty for King and Country very strongly, but John feels the call to duty to his fellow man, and as a man of faith, to God. There have been many films and plays about soldiers in the First World War. Most of them concentrate on men who became soldiers. This play has that too, but there were also those who objected because they had strong humanitarian views or faith, as well as protected occupations which were exempt from conscription.

“There was also the difficulty of how those who were left behind survived: mainly women, children, and those too old or young to sign up. There was also a very important First World War battle that affected all the families in Sussex that became known as The Battle of Boars Head in France. It also became known as The Day Sussex Died as the repercussions were felt by every single family across the county. The real sounds of those times are used in the play, including the very end of the war: the last shelling before the ceasefire and the silence that fell on November 11 1918.”

Susanne added: “There is no story out there that brings all these things together. When I was researching this through Sound Architect Creative Media, a charity that runs heritage projects, one elderly lady told me how she lost her father in the Battle of Boars Head and it was still very fresh in her mind even at 94 years old.

“One man told me of the bravery of his grandfather saving others from no man’s land, which is backed up by official records as well as other people’s accounts. It’s so hard for us to imagine now the very real impact of what it must have been like. But there was something else that really struck me about these oral histories: the funny stories. The camaraderie, as well as the bravery. The fun they got up to. And the fact that they were just like us: they had hopes for the future, they had things that gave them joy and made them laugh. I wanted to tell this very human friendship story, and how it’s tested by their very different calls to duty under extreme circumstances.”