 We were horror struck because we had been brought up with history as per the book and that history came from the top down and it was glory and it was sacrifice and it was heroism and the brave. What was never told was the real story of those that actually fought it and that was our brief, that history not from the shiny boots down but from the men in the mud up. Charles Chilton was a BBC producer into music and he'd lost his father in the First World War. It was in 1958 he was on holiday at Arras the battlefield and he looked for his father's grave. When I last discovered my father's official memorial it was to find that he had no known grave. What could have possibly happened to a man that rendered his burial impossible? What horror could have taken place that rendered the burial of 35,942 men impossible and all in one relatively small area? And so out of that experience he formulated a program of the First World War songs. That was broadcast and Jerry Raffles who was the general manager here and also Joan's partner heard that radio program and thought that could be a good stage show. You know I'm often asked why we were all clowns, seaside clowns. Well when you read Joan's book she had been taken as a young girl to the seaside and she'd seen the peros on the beach and she comments how she loved that dressed all in that shiny satin. She didn't like death on stage and she had a horror of khaki and uniforms. We realised that we were actors playing clowns playing soldiers so that the horror was thrice removed. I mean our rifles were wooden because peros wouldn't have had real rifles. We used walking sticks. Joan didn't like sentimentality on stage. The songs are a counterpoint to the horror. When the horror got too much she'd then get them to burst into the song and although songs were traditional the soldiers made up their own words and it was those that we used. We rehearsed those scenes but we never knew until the last few days that there was going to be this thing called a ticker tape. We certainly didn't know that there were going to be slides. You see the ticker tape was almost the antithesis of what we were doing as performers. There are lots of songs there are lots of jokes it's all done jokely and it brings the audience in and then the punch comes at the end of the first and then from then on and then that ticker tape would go across saying yes it was the first battle and five hundred thousand men died so the ticker tape reflected the truism that wasn't being brought over in the history or what was happening in front of them on stage. Nobody ever spoke about it it wasn't funny and we considered that it was this terrible thing about bravery and that men didn't cry and that men didn't object and that you were a hero and they died heroes. Nobody talked about men screaming for their mothers going over the top which of course what we read about from the papers that were kept secret but they did screamed for their mothers and a woman came in to joan and she said i've tried to get my old man to come and talk to you because he was he was there and joan said oh he won't come he won't come he won't talk about it and that's what we all were. Hey gliding that song one thousand men in one single line in full pack with the order they did not run they did not try and hide they just marched toward the enemy and the Germans were waiting for them and they just machine gunned them all down when they got to the barbed wire the British barbed wire they just machine gunned them down and they all fell dead or wounded on the barbed wire and the next day he ordered another thousand to do exactly the same and they were mowed down and they marched forward and those still not dead on that barbed wire screamed at them to go back go back but no they had been ordered three days three thousand men the arm scene which opens act two where we're all being armament manufacturers you know and it's that lovely lovely phase where the game keeper says to one of them i hear it'll be over by christmas sir and one of them says oh i hope not because they were making million they're still making millions the armaments we live on armaments but it was always the same with joan somebody wrote a script but then the company worked on it and so there was an enormous amount of of homework by everybody and and joan would pick on the first attack on the song aris gas a different subject and you don't go away that night and you'd all read up and then the next morning they're all gather and from all your homework and study you came out with what you considered the salient points of whatever and then out of that she would improvise one of the unique workings of the seater workshop and jones way of working was that in rehearsal you all played each other's roles now lots of actors would object to that somebody else but for an actor it was very good because another person with a different thought hit on a different reason or and so you took that as your own and used it you very often in a love scene you the man played the woman the woman played the man very interesting how that change of gender brought up different attitudes she did that a lot now jone loved two or three conversations going on at once she always used to say we all listened to two or three conversations going on at once you never get that on stage somebody talks and everybody else listens it doesn't happen in real life and so she loved it when she had three conversations going on but that then you had to work it on different levels almost like a Mozartian symphony and so that the pertinent line came out and the audience heard it while there's a lot of other conversations going on but you could still hear took hours and then people used to say of course you that's yet a workshop you make it up as you go along don't you sometimes but not always yes that that took an awful lot a great deal of work but worth it because you you did you did get all those conversations and all that information came across all in one block there was a great influence from brecht but then jones would say you stole from the best now more than mr brecht here brecht um you had the marx brothers you see we were always playing the marx brothers we were always playing charlie chaplin you would always play musical you do it in double time like silent films if you if you've got sort of bogged down with detail or something she'd suddenly say come on get on the piano and and let's do some and you go diddly them diddly them and you do it all in that double which took the pressure off you as an actor but then brought out the the salient point of of of what the scene was about and then you'd go back with a different perspective because there was no money imagination had to come into play you had to think of another way around hadn't got the money to spend on some ginormous and all the better for it those sets were now you very often see no set at all but that was that was lovely war there was no set it was an empty stage it had two balcones either side of the stage and that was it and further back there was there was a gantry with with the ticket table otherwise it was the best you created everything but that was jones way of working came into a crowded room and the crowded room was empty you had to make it crowded it had a major impact on the direction of theatre in this country they're brought up with horror on their television screens we see people burning we see people being shocked and and you know and and will it dull the senses will they accept but of course it's strange it's the show itself somehow that ticker tape those numbers always got through to people and especially when it said gains five yards or gains nearly when you just had the ticket tape say 20 000 men had died for what nothing so it got through i had that pleased me enormously that the younger generation was still being moved i came up here and said well done jones still getting still getting the message across