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    O What A Lovely War

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    Izabela Dima
    Musical theatre combines songs, spoken dialogue, acting and dance to tell a story through music, words and movement. While related to genres like opera and dance, musicals give equal importance to music as well as other elements. Modern musical theatre emerged in the 19th century through the works of Gilbert and Sullivan and Harrigan and Hart. Musicals are performed globally in both large and small venues. London has a vibrant musical theatre scene centered in its West End, featuring transfers from major UK companies and productions. Oh, What a Lovely War! is a 1963 musical developed by Joan Littlewood that satirizes World War I using songs soldiers sang in trenches set to a Commedia dell'arte style with pierrot costumes

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    O What A Lovely War

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    Izabela Dima
    468 views1 page
    Musical theatre combines songs, spoken dialogue, acting and dance to tell a story through music, words and movement. While related to genres like opera and dance, musicals give equal importance to music as well as other elements. Modern musical theatre emerged in the 19th century through the works of Gilbert and Sullivan and Harrigan and Hart. Musicals are performed globally in both large and small venues. London has a vibrant musical theatre scene centered in its West End, featuring transfers from major UK companies and productions. Oh, What a Lovely War! is a 1963 musical developed by Joan Littlewood that satirizes World War I using songs soldiers sang in trenches set to a Commedia dell'arte style with pierrot costumes

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    O what a lovely war

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    Musical theatre combines songs, spoken dialogue, acting and dance to tell a story through music, words and movement. While related to genres like opera and dance, musicals give equal importance to music as well as other elements. Modern musical theatre emerged in the 19th century through the works of Gilbert and Sullivan and Harrigan and Hart. Musicals are performed globally in both large and small venues. London has a vibrant musical theatre scene centered in its West End, featuring transfers from major UK companies and productions. Oh, What a Lovely War! is a 1963 musical developed by Joan Littlewood that satirizes World War I using songs soldiers sang in trenches set to a Commedia dell'arte style with pierrot costumes

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    468 views1 page

    O What A Lovely War

    Uploaded by

    Izabela Dima
    Musical theatre combines songs, spoken dialogue, acting and dance to tell a story through music, words and movement. While related to genres like opera and dance, musicals give equal importance to music as well as other elements. Modern musical theatre emerged in the 19th century through the works of Gilbert and Sullivan and Harrigan and Hart. Musicals are performed globally in both large and small venues. London has a vibrant musical theatre scene centered in its West End, featuring transfers from major UK companies and productions. Oh, What a Lovely War! is a 1963 musical developed by Joan Littlewood that satirizes World War I using songs soldiers sang in trenches set to a Commedia dell'arte style with pierrot costumes

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    Musical theatre is a form of theatrical performance that combines songs, spoken dialogue, acting, and

    dance. The story and emotional content of a musical – humor, pathos, love, anger – are communicated
    through the words, music, movement and technical aspects of the entertainment as an integrated whole.
    Although musical theatre overlaps with other theatrical forms like opera and dance, it may be
    distinguished by the equal importance given to the music as compared with the dialogue, movement and
    other elements. Since the early 20th century, musical theatre stage works have generally been called,
    simply, musicals.

    Although music has been a part of dramatic presentations since ancient times, modern Western
    musical theatre emerged during the 19th century, with many structural elements established by the works
    of Gilbert and Sullivan in Britain and those of Harrigan and Hart in America.

    Musicals are performed around the world. They may be presented in large venues, such as big-budget
    Broadway or West End productions in New York City or London. Alternatively, musicals may be staged
    in smaller fringe theatre, Off-Broadway or regional theatre productions, or on tour. Musicals are often
    presented by amateur and school groups in churches, schools and other performance spaces. In
    addition to the United States and Britain, there are vibrant musical theatre scenes in continental Europe,
    Asia, Australia, Canada and Latin America.

    London Theatre

    The majority of London's commercial "theatre land" is situated around Shaftesbury Avenue, the Strand
    and nearby streets in the West End. The theatres are receiving houses, and often feature transfers of
    major productions from the Royal National Theatre and Royal Shakespeare Company.

    Oh, What a Lovely War! is an epic musical developed by Joan Littlewood and her ensemble at the
    Theatre Workshop in 1963.

    The idea for the production started on Armistice Day 1962 when Gerry Raffles heard the second
    broadcast of Charles Chilton's radio musical for the BBC Home Service, called The Long Long Trail
    about World War I. Written and produced by Chilton in memory of his father, the piece was a radio
    documentary that used facts and statistics, juxtaposed with reminiscences and versions of songs of the
    time, as an ironic critique of the reality of the war. The songs were found in a book published in 1917
    called Tommy's Tunes which had new lyrics written in the trenches to well-known songs of the era,
    many from hymns or from west end shows.

    Raffles proposed the idea of using it as the basis of a production to his partner, Joan Littlewood, but
    she detested the idea, hating World War I, military uniforms, and everything they stood for. Gerry
    though, brought Chilton along to the theatre and they played through the songs. Eventually Littlewood
    considered it might work, but refused any military uniforms, deciding on pierrot costumes from
    Commedia dell'arte very early on as a "soft, fluffy entertainment mode" providing an ironic contrast to
    the tin hats which they also wore. Joan wanted audiences to leave the theatre laughing at the "vulgarity of
    war". The idea was to portray how groups of people could lose their sense of individuality by conforming
    to those of a higher authority, which Littlewood despised.

    The Theatre Workshop developed productions through improvisation and initially the cast would
    learn the original script but then have that taken away and have to retell the story in their own words for
    performance.

    A satire on World War I, the title is derived from the music hall song "Oh! It's a Lovely War," which is
    one of the major numbers in the production.

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