Birdsong – Leeds and touring ★★★★★

It’s an easy step to relate the challenge of the setting to that of Shakespeare’s Henry V when the Chorus entreats the audience to use their imaginations “…can this cockpit hold the vasty fields of France? or may we cram within this wooden O the very casques that did affright the air?” And so
Richard Kent’s carefully-simple set is sparse – only what makes the action clear is there – for most of us the images contained within the language are already seared into our collective memories.

The action of Birdsong, a novel which contains so much of the lesser-known history of the Great War, as well as the most passionate of love affairs, is enhanced enormously with Dominic Bilkey’s soundscape. This varies from the merest whispers of the eponymous theme to the loudest of exploding shells, and that most penetrating whistles. The singing of the soldiers, as they prepare to launch their final attacks, is hauntingly beautiful.

Central to the piece are Stephen Wraysford (James Esler) and Isabelle Azair (Charlie Russell). Meeting in Amiens, before the war, this young English man and unhappily-married French woman, form a relationship which has the makings of one of literature’s great love stories. Theirs is a love which seems to transcend social norms and is as full, erotic and glorious as true love should be. So, rent apart, at first for reasons unknown and then by war, Stephen is left bereft. Elser and Russell in these parts are wonderful: strong, brave and hugely moving, their anguish and affection are
palpable.