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CONQUERING armies struggle to restore order in occupied territory...
On this occasion we are talking about German, Russian and American forces in central Europe in the 1940s.
But clearly there are parallels with the situation in Iraq, and while Andrew Breakwell's production of The Silver Sword doesn't force them on you, anyone who has followed news footage from Iraq will find them hard to escape.
Ian Serraillier's adventure concerns three Polish siblings and an enigmatic orphan who joins them on their search for their missing parents.
At one stage they have absolutely nothing - no money, no food, no shoes for their feet - and eventually they argue about whether theft is justifiable if it guarantees survival.
This and other issues (like the fate of children embroiled in war) have never been far away this year - and if the programming of The Silver Sword was a coincidence, it is a welcome one. Aside from latterday parallels, what of the show itself?
It is a beautiful piece of ensemble storytelling, atmospherically set by Jane Linz Roberts, whose bomb-blasted Warsaw looks absolutely right.
Nina Bhirangi (as the teenage matriarch Ruth), Philip Reed, Cerianne Roberts and Edward Hogg are all interestingly different as the questing foursome.
The on-stage musicians are their peers in smaller roles, and Ian
Conningham reels off a succession of vivid roles - the best being an all-knowing Russian private and an officious German promoted to burgomeister when he should have been a traffic warden.
It's billed as a 'family show' - but a lot of adults will find bottom lips wobbling when the emotional ending arrives.
Jeremy Lewis, Nottingham Evening Post
Saturday 28th June 2003
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