DIRECTOR and playwright Terry Johnson admits he wasn’t worried about directing a play covering such a wide subject as the First World War – but more in stepping into the shoes of theatre legend Joan Littlewood.

“It was fairly scary taking on an iconographic work,” he says. “It could be called one of the most important productions in the theatre history of the last century.

“Joan Littlewood’s original idea changed the face of theatre.”

Using the songs of the First World War, projected slides of statistics and contemporary images and a cast dressed in Pierrot costumes and tin hats Littlewood’s devised musical was a satire on the vulgarity of war.

What made it so important was its point of view.

“It comes from the side of the fodder rather than the whys and wherefores,” he says. “The most important scene of the play is at the beginning of Act Two – the grouse shooting scene. If you listen to it, it explains very articulately why war sustains and continues, and what war is about.”

He compares the original 1963 production to Adam Curtis’s Bitter Lake, the recent BBC iPlayer documentary about the war in Afghanistan.

“It’s about how Afghanistan is central to most of the conflict going on, and that it’s entirely our fault,” says Johnson. “There is just not enough of that sort of analysis going on – it’s a breath of fresh air.”

Littlewood’s original play arose from a 1962 radio show The Long Long Trail, which Johnson listened to as part of his preparations going into the play.

“It’s a very odd radio show,” he says. “It’s like Friday Night Is Music Night – all the songs sung during the war. Because the play was workshopped we only have what is left on the page.

“It’s quite possible to cut a scene because you don’t understand it, and put it back two weeks later.”

He points to a particularly incongruous moment in the musical when a theatre usher begins to sing the popular song Hitchykoo.

“It seems to have nothing to do with it,” says Johnson. “I didn’t get it, until somebody said the slides were interesting. It showed how the war was quite invidiously used to sell everything from soap to gramophone records. It’s called capitalism – women’s ankles sold less powerfully than a man in a cap. If the audience is happy, smiling and laughing they can absorb the content much more easily – they become sponges for the content which is true to all drama.”

Brighton played a role in transferring the play to the big screen – with the West Pier and South Downs providing most of the backdrop for the late Richard Attenborough’s film version starring Sir Laurence Olivier, Corin Redgrave, Ralph Richardson and John Mills.

The movie adaptation was not to Littlewood’s taste.

“It handed the material over to the establishment she was committed to dismantling,” says Johnson. “Her life’s work was making sure those actors were no longer in total charge of theatre. Her production was pretty much the first time working class actors had performed for working class audiences. Those audiences had seen themselves in music hall, vaudeville and melodrama, but never in a play. It was the beginning of a transformation we have not yet completed.”

This touring production stars Coronation Street’s Wendi Peters,inse, heading up a versatile ensemble cast.

“It’s hard to find a company that can sing, dance, make you laugh and act extremely well,” he says. “That was another thing Joan was great at – putting together some real troupers.”

Johnson admits he had his knuckles rapped for putting too much khaki in his production.

“In the film even the presence of the poppies was enough to send Joan screaming down the aisle,” he says. “Who knows why she walked in one day and said this should be a Pierrot show. A lot of the khaki gets left on the bus now.”

When preparing for the show Johnson approached one of Littlewood’s original stars Murray Melvin.

“He said: ‘I’m not going to give you any advice,” says Johnson. “I had to make it mine. The play has a self-contained irony – as long as you do what you’re told it is going to work. We often found ourselves saying ‘What would Joan do?’ The one piece advice Murray did give to the actors was: ‘Remember where they put their f***ing hats’ – which on a Tuesday in Torquay is quite a challenge!”

Duncan Hall

Essential information

Starts 7.45pm, 2.30pm matinees Thurs and Sat, tickets from £10. Call 08448 717650.