Tom, Dick and Harry are the three tunnels dug 30 feet below the German POW camp Stalag Luft III in 1943-44 by captive allied prisoners of war. The action opens in the cockpit of a bomber hit by enemy fire; it continues in prison-camp huts, takes us below ground into tunnels propped up by slats taken from beds, then brings us to the surface to watch escapees climb up through a hole and run as searchlights probe the sheltering darkness. We follow Bob through Holland and Belgium to the Spanish border and – cue daring leap over the barbed wire – safety.
Aspects of this story may be familiar from the 1963 film The Great Escape. In this new, spectacularly imaginative version, though, we don’t so much just watch as seem to live alongside the prisoners. The three writers, Andrew Pollard, Michael Hugo (who also perform), and Theresa Heskins (who directs) bring us closer to the realities of events by basing their play on source material, including survivors’ blow-by-blow accounts.
The production, like the escape itself, is daring and inventive. Heskins has been developing a distinctive style since she became artistic director of this theatre-in-the-round in 2007. Key features include highly physical performances incorporating clowning and sight gags, the interweaving of floor projections, sound and music to evoke places, and audience participation. All of these are present here, which is what makes the production so daring.
Its subject matter is deadly serious – of 76 escapees, 50 were reported killed. The manner of the telling, though, is humorous, even farcical: early on we are introduced to a “translation machine”; when it is operating, German characters speak English, albeit with quirky accents and syntax.
In part, the tone reflects that set by the prisoners themselves, as when, for instance, escapees are selected by raffle at a Christmas concert in plain sight of their captors. Against this lightness, darkness is stark: the threat of a grenade being dropped into a newly discovered tunnel where men still dig; the fury of a guard, exclaiming, “Our families starve while you joke… your bombs are dropping on our homes” (elsewhere, treatment of captors sometimes descends into nasty caricature).
To succeed, escapees are said to require “talent and ingenuity”. As demonstrated by this cast and crew, the same is true for theatre.
