Fighting is a Soldier’s Job, by Gerald Farmer, Devised and Directed as a Visual Radio Play by Steve Newman – Dirty Duck, Stratford-upon-Avon, 13th November, 2011, at 7.30pm

Gerald in Korea

The Korean War is often referred to as the ‘forgotten war’, which it is for many – sadly, for many more it’s the unknown war. But for those who took part there can be no forgetting, for it was as brutal and bloody as any war before or after, and a war, like all wars, that changed peoples lives.

There haven’t been too many memoirs of the conflict , although Michael Caine, in his superb autobiography, What’s It All About?, covers his own experiences in Korea extremely well, as does Bethnal Green born Gerald Farmer, whose own memoir of Korea, in manuscript form ( in the end there were five manuscripts), found its way to my desk a year or so ago.

I get to read quite a lot of manuscripts, but very few of them stand out. Gerald Farmer’s stood apart from the rest as a great story passionately told. It was also a story that needed to find an audience, but not necessarily – in the first instance – a reading audience. In fact what Gerald had written was a dramatic scenario that was crying out to be produced as a stage show. But how best might it work?

My first thought was to do it as a straight forward drama, but I soon dismissed this idea because so much of the manuscript would need to go, leaving just another version of The Long and the Short and the Tall. I then thought of the idea of a live drama-documentary, but that might need a lot of staging with the story becoming lost in the comings and goings. Then, after listening to radio drama earlier this year, it dawned on me that to encompass the breadth of Gerald’s story it could only be done (other than in a feature film, which isn’t a bad idea) as a radio drama, but a radio drama with a difference.

And the difference would be that of a visual radio drama that could be made to work on so many levels, not least that of an audience watching a ‘radio show’ in the making, with actors taking on different voices and characterisations, plus the required sound effects and music, but also as a platform for the audience to see projected images of the conflict, of Gerald and his friends, of Bethnal Green in the 1940s, of Gerald and his comrades in the Royal Fusiliers, and so on.

It’s been something of a challenge, and a labour of love, but with the finished script, Fighting is a Soldier’s Job, full of breadth and depth, due solely to Gerald’s deeply felt memories that at times are, in their poetry, very emotional, gritty, and very funny, giving a wonderful sense of a life well fought, well loved, and well lived.

I just know that with the cast I’ve gathered together to do the job – including Peter Cubitt, Sarah Cushing, Garrick Huscared, Tim Raistrick, Janey Huscared, Tony Boyd-Williams, Hilary Newman, Clive Bardell, Alex Dale, Matt Stead and Val Cubitt – this unique performance, staged at the Dirty Duck in Stratford, with some exceptional technical help, will be something a bit special. And it isn’t just a story of war, but one of love for his wife Alice.

I must add that it would have been impossible to stage this play without the continued support and enthusiasm of Sam Jackson, the landlord of the Dirty Duck.

Performance: Sunday 13th November (Remembrance Sunday), 2011, at 7.30pm, at the Dirty Duck Pub, Waterside, Stratford-upon-Avon.
Tickets (£12.50, to include a hot supper), only available from the Dirty Duck.
Tel: 01789 297312

 The performance is in aid of The Leukaemia and Lymphoma Society.