IAN HISLOP AND NICK NEWMAN’S SATIRICAL PLAY
Comes to Richmond theatre, Tue 26 – Sat 30 Sep
Monday, 31 July 2017: Following a sold-out UK tour in 2016 and a fast-selling limited season in the West End, Ian Hislop and Nick Newman’s The Wipers Times will once again tour the UK this autumn, stopping at Richmond Theatre on Tuesday 26 – Saturday 30 September. A projected press review performance date is set for Tuesday 26 Sep at 7.30pm.
A stage adaptation of their award-winning BBC film, this production 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. The production originally launched one hundred years after the Battle of the Somme and publication of The Wipers Times. Ian Hislop has most recently taken part in the Passchendaele 100 celebrations this past weekend in Ypres, Belgium where he introduced a sketch from the play.
Ian Hislop and Nick Newman said: “Following an amazing audience and critical reaction in the West End which was almost over the top, 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.”
In a bombed out building during the First World War in the Belgian town of Ypres (mispronounced as ‘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 Wipers Times is directed by Caroline Leslie, designed by Dora Schweitzer, with lighting design byJames Smith, sound design by Steve Mayo. The composer is Nick Green, and Musical Director Paul Herbert. The Wipers Times is the second collaboration between The Watermill Theatre and Trademark. A Bunch of Amateurs, also by Ian Hislop and Nick Newman, was produced at The Watermill in 2014.