'NOT ABOUT HEROES'
One and One Theatre

"A remarkable play about the friendship between Siegfried Sassoon, already a well-known poet, and the unknown Wilfred Owen, who meet at Craiglockhart War Hospital for Nervous Disorders. We see Sassoon's encouragement and Owen's increasing self-confidence until the latter's death just a week before the Armistice...Sensitively directed by Pete Watt, who also designed the simple, effective set, allowing the actors a refreshing stillness and intensity. There are no histrionics, just a very deep level of emotion and sincerity. James Elliott plays Sassoon, brash at the beginning, but undergoing a profound change after being wounded at the front, and deepening in his respect and admiration for Owen. Owen is played by Jonathan Race in a most impressive and profoundly moving performance. This is a young man who has been deeply traumatised and yet who retains his humanity and creativity and channels it into the work that has made him the greatest of the poets of the First World War. There is a charming innocence about him, as he writes to his mother in great excitement about Sassoon's endorsement of his work, made all the more poignant by our knowledge of Owen's ultimate fate. A wonderful piece of theatre."
Lesley McEwen, Newbury and Thatcham Chronicle