Tom Stuchfield’s first play, Somewhere a Gunner Fires, opens this week at The King’s Head Theatre. Set during the First World War, the play has been in development since the Centenary commemorations began, and Chris Born, who plays Volker, has been involved since the beginning.
“I knew the writer, Tom, and it’s been developing for over four years now, we first did a production at University and I worked with him on it then, so I’ve been lucky enough to be involved from day one.”
“It’s a play about the First World War, but lots of different fronts in the First World War, so the main action is set on The Italian Front, but it looks at the Western Front and the Home Front too, all of these geographically separate parts of the war and the conflict between them.”
Chris tells me that the Centenary commemorations have been helpful with his research, and he’s went to a lot of the events, but he’s gained a lot from the arts too, “I did a fair bit of research at the beginning, I saw some amazing photographic resources online; the usual ones from the Western Front, but also, for example, Austrian women making armaments, and women in England making munitions. The photos, and paintings, also helped me understand how cramped the condition were, and how everyone basically had to do what they were told.”
How did all of this make Chris feel? “The unfairness of it all was quite staggering, I felt emotionally invested from the start. The First World War feels like this big abstract event, but as soon as you break it down and make it more relatable to individual people, it becomes a lot more tragic.”
Chris’s character, Volker, might not seem like the usual war hero, and Chris is careful not to give too much of the plot away “Volker is an Austrian conscript who lives on the border between Austria and Italy, his wife is Italian but he’s conscripted to the Austrian army and expected to kill Italians, basically his wife’s countrymen, he eventually becomes like a courier transporting items, so is still complicit in the events.”
How does Chris, as an actor, find the motivation for the role? “I’ve never experienced anything akin to this, but I have been away from loved ones for up to a year, so I’ve been able to draw on those feelings of loneliness and trying to find unexpected solace in a difficult situation.” In Volker’s case that friendship comes in the form of a machine-gunner, but “other unusual friendships are formed too as a result of horrific circumstances, our familiarity as a cast really helps with that.”
In fact, three of the cast went to University with writer Tom, while others have worked together in different projects, and only Ollie (Olivia Hanrahan-Barnes), is new to the company, “We’re all quite weird when it comes to our sense of humour, maybe she found us a bit strange at first”.
But, Chris tells me it’s important that the cast feel comfortable with each other because of the structure of the play, “we spent a lot of time making her feel comfortable around us, also, she came in just as we went through a big re-write so it felt like we were all coming at it fresh at that point. It allows us to have a bit more humour in the play, rather than just playing up the sadness and the emotion, that can only from our relationship with each other.”
Writer Tom Stuchfield, also directs and appears in Somewhere a Gunner Fires, and his inspiration came from looking at his own family history “The main British character has a lot of elements drawn from Tom’s own family history, but it’s not the direct story of his family, so he can play with the interpretive way we can look our own history. He’s very cleverly taken away that potential to get sentimental about it, but it was still useful for him to place the context.”
Has that inspired Chris to look at his family history? “I went to the National Archives to look in to it and my great-grandfather had worked in the docks around Newcastle, and he helped repair the ships involved in the Battle of Britain. I don’t think he approved of actors, or the theatre”, he laughs, “but I think he would have approved of the way we are commemorating it.”
Somewhere a Gunner Fires will be one of the last productions to be staged in the current King’s Head Theatre, before its move, “It feels amazing to be performing at The King’s Head, the atmosphere is very co-operative, everyone is interested in the shows going on, and invested in the quality of them. The enthusiasm goes right through the building.”
Finally, I ask Chris what audiences can expect from Somewhere a Gunner Fires? “It’s very unusual, be prepared to be shocked and intrigued, but in a good way.”
Chris can be seen in Somewhere a Gunner Fires at The King’s Head Theatre 6th – 24th February 2018.
