This large-scale, site-specific production – performed in the ancient Great Llancayo Upper Wood, near Usk, Monmouthshire – gave audiences a vivid glimpse into life and death in the trenches and on the battlefields of the Somme.
Inspired by Welsh writer Owen Sheers’ poem ‘Mametz Wood’, it drew on written material by the poets who fought in or witnessed one of the war’s bloodiest conflicts – the Battle of Mametz Wood, in which 4,000 of the 38th (Welsh) Division were killed or wounded.
Among the soldiers who took part in the battle were several key Welsh and English war poets, including Robert Graves, David Jones, Siegfried Sassoon and Llewelyn Wyn Griffith, and Sheers’ own great-great-uncle, William Cross.
Co-commissioned by 14-18 NOW and National Theatre Wales. With funding from Arts Council of Wales and the Welsh Government.
