Howard Brenton’s new play is about Harold Gillies, a famous plastic surgery pioneer during World War 1, who didn’t just want to heal the bodies of his patients; he wanted to heal their minds and souls as well. Gillies was a joker and he would put on a beard and a kilt and pretend to be Doctor Scroggy and encourage midnight revels with champagne in the hospital wards. “We don’t do glum,” he said.
Jack Twigg, a clever working class boy, an Oxford undergraduate, a fictional character, joins up and works as an intelligence officer in GHQ until he volunteers for the front line. He is severely wounded on the first day of the Battle of Loos in 1915. At first Jack does not want to be alive. Later, when he has acquired a new face, he wants to go back to the front, feeling it is his duty to do so.
One of the most effective scenes is the dispute between Field Marshall French and Field Marshall Haig over Loos. There is an amusing joke at the expense of the British and the French High Command; since neither side is bi-lingual, they have great difficulty in communicating.
Two scenes are particularly moving. The first is when Jack is reunited with his parents and the second is when Queen Mary visits the hospital and whispers kind words (which the audience does not hear) to the inmates. The heavily bandaged lads put on a show for her and sing “I’m only a broken baby doll.”
James Garnon as Gillies and Will Featherstone as Jack are excellent. Brenton’s play and John Dove’s production certainly deserves a longer life after the performances have finished at Shakespeare’s Globe.