Double Barrel Productions & The Plough Arts Centre proudly present
'Edie's War' by (Olivier Award winner) Morgan Lloyd Malcolm and directed by Susan Luciani
From 15th June until 18th June 2022
Warning: Strobe lighting, smoke & explosive sound effect will be used during this performance. Patrons who are affected by these effects please contact Front of House staff. CW // references to war and suicide.
We are delighted to announce a new venture for The Plough Arts Centre – In partnership with Double Barrel Productions we are producing our first play.
Inspired by the diaries of Edith Appleton, OBE, who left Crediton in 1914 to join an elite group of nurses on the front line in WW1, Edie’s War tells her very personal story of caring for soldiers who were fighting an entirely new type of war – one where the horrors of the trenches, gas attacks and shelling had devastating effect.
Written by Olivier Award winner Morgan Lloyd Malcolm (Emilia -The Globe and Vaudeville Theatre West End, Mum – Plymouth Drum & Soho Theatre, Typical Girls – Sheffield Crucible, When The Long Trick’s Over - High Tide, Belongings and The Wasp – Hampstead Theatre and Trafalgar Studios) and directed by Susan Luciani (Film director and choreographer of shows at Vaults Festival, East 15, O2 and Wembley Arenas, Camera-visual effects for Star Wars VII, Da Vinci Code, Harry Potter & Narnia), Edie’s War will be a truly sensory experience for the audience. Combining professional actors with a community choir the production will illustrate the relentless and visceral nature of war from a woman’s perspective in a fresh and contemporary way.
Taking on the role of substitute sisters, mothers and aunties to the wounded and dying; Edie's nurses are portrayed with unflinching honesty, showing unimaginable bravery and sisterhood in the darkest of moments. This is a story to move the strongest of hearts – heroism at its kindest.
There will be a Q&A session with writer Morgan Lloyd Malcolm, Director Susan Luciani and Edie's family after the Saturday Matinee performance.
“I was of a generation - perhaps the last - where it was still possible to gain first hand spoken account fo the First War. My inspiration for War Horse was fuelled directly by conversations I had with a handful of octogenarians who were living at a time in my tiny village of Iddesleigh. Reading these extraordinary diaries of Edie Appleton, I have something of the same feeling I had then, sitting among those brave men - a feeling of extraordinary privilege to be listening to such stories first hand.” Michael Morpurgo, patron of The Plough Arts Centre.
“In telling this story we’ll honour the women who worked tirelessly to save lives and ease the suffering of the wounded and dying soldiers in the First World War. Their ability to keep working for months on end in the most hellish of circumstances, surrounded by the sounds of bombing raids, the injured crying out for help, the shell shocked, the dying, whilst themselves being under near constant threat of attack as revealed in Edith Appleton’s diaries, is true heroism, a heroism we have yet to fully celebrate in the canon of war stories, the women’s heroism." Director Susan Luciani
Production sponsored by Cobbaton Combat Collection www.facebook.com/Cobbaton-Combat-Collection-113173945423511/
We will be fundraising on site for HELP FOR HEROES until June 20, with all proceeds from collections will go to the charity. Help for Heroes is a charity registered in England and Wales (1120920) and Scotland (SC044984).