The writers of Tom, Dick and Harry make a thing about the play’s authenticity. It was only in 1972 that much of the wartime material related to the allied escapes from Stalag Luft III was declassified. That was more than two decades after Paul Brickhill told the story in The Great Escape, the book that inspired the Steve McQueen movie. Delving into the National Archives today, Andrew Pollard, Michael Hugo and Theresa Heskins could access information unavailable to earlier storytellers.
No doubt they uncovered fascinating details, but the outline remains the same. In a prisoner-of-war camp run by the Luftwaffe, the captured air force personnel make two major attempts at tunnelling their way out. The second time, after constructing tunnels code-named Tom, Dick and Harry, 76 of them manage to flee – albeit not for long.
