Cast: Luke Tittenson, Stuart Graham, Lewis Reeves, Michael Socha, Chris Mason, Hannah Britland, Paul Popplewell, Bobby Schofield, Sandy Batchelor, Anthony Schuster, Michael Peavoy, Andrew MacBean, Laurie Kynaston.
The second part of the B.B.C. series Our World War was one in which looked at the way the Battle of the Somme had an effect on the soldiers who fought in that bloody, unforgiving and devastating fight, especially two soldiers whose lives would become intertwined over the coming days of the offensive, Private Paddy Kennedy and Private William Hunt.
Joe Barton’s Our World War: Pals was compulsive viewing and very much like the previous episode, it immersed itself into the consciousness of the viewer in a way that made the bloody waste of humanity more real than anything that has been on television before. It is one thing to read all the books that the library has to offer on the subject, it is another to listen to stories that your grandparents relate to you of their parents exploits during that gruesome time, it is though an entirely different case of perspective when you see just how one person’s actions in the face of unrelenting stress and insanity can lead them to being tried, sentenced and shot for alleged desertion.
The underlying thread of this particular thread in the history of the First World war was of supposed comradeship and a brothers in arms attitude, one in which saw hundreds of thousands of workmates, colleagues and friends join up for the adventure, slaughter, together. Pals till death it seems.
The debate that raged between Private Paddy Kennedy and Father Brooks, portrayed by Luke Tittenson and Stuart Graham centred on the events that took place in the Trones Woods. The Manchester Pals had been ordered to hold the ground they had taken during the initial opening days of the Somme and somehow avoiding allowing the woods to fall back into enemy hands. With the position surrounded, Private Kennedy was ordered to find water for the company and in amongst the swarms of Germans he came across the lone survivor of a previous clash, Private William Hunt.
It was this meeting that set the scene for one of the greatest tragedies during the war, the way an army could take the life of one of their own under suspicion of desertion. With no proof to suggest otherwise, Private William Hunt was executed for desertion and it was with particular irony that Private Kennedy was among, albeit strongly opposed, the firing squad.
With solid performances in a drama/educational film from the likes of Luke Tittenson, Stuart Graham, Hannah Britland and Bobby Schofield, Our World War: Pals should be seen as an important historical piece of film making, not only for the destruction of whole swathes of men in towns and villages that never truly recovered from the amount of men lost to the war but also to the systematic destruction of a man’s identity and life by the simple label of coward. Whilst thankfully all the men who were executed were finally pardoned in 2006, it was a system that showed the dishonour in such an equally supposed cowardly act.
This beautifully made series is as enlightening as it is needed, a true and remarkable piece of writing from Joe Barton.
The final part of Our World War is on next Thursday.
Ian D. Hall