Island Arts Centre marks the Great War centenary

To mark the centenary of the Great War in 1914, the Island Arts Centre is staging the powerfully evocative Anthem for a Doomed Youth on Friday September 19 at 8pm.
By The Newsroom
Published 31st Aug 2014, 10:16 BST

A chronicle of the terrible waste of war – powerful, funny, intimate and moving it, dramatises the lives of ordinary people caught up in extraordinary historical events.

Olivier Award winning producer, actor, director and writer, Guy Masterson recites some of WW1’s greatest writers and relives short stories as if he is the writer.

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The result is an immediate, compelling insight into the nature of war, sacrifice and honour that is impossible to resist.

Accounts from both sides of No Man’s Land include Wilfred Owen (Dulce Et Decorum Est, Anthem For Doomed Youth), Siegfried Sassoon (The Rank Stench, A Mystic As Soldier), Isaac Rosenberg (The Immortals, Spring 1916, Break of Day) and lesser known German poets, as well as moving stories such as Erich Maria Remarque’s All Quiet On The Western Front and the legendary Christmas Truce.

Life in the trenches is brought vividly to life by the sheer physicality of Masterson’s performance.

His voice, increasingly reminiscent of his great uncle, Richard Burton, makes the words sing, echo and vibrate in a way that will be remembered for a very long time.

Tickets, priced £12/£10 concession, are available by logging onto islandartscentre.com. Alternatively contact Island Arts Centre box office on 028 92 509254.