The Wipers Times Announce Charity Gala Performance on Remembrance Sunday

To coincide with the commemoration of the end of WW1 there will be a special gala performance of Ian Hislop and Nick Newman’s play The Wipers Times on Remembrance Sunday 11 November at 6pm at the Arts Theatre, London in support of The Royal British Legion’s Thank You campaign. The evening will include an introduction, post-show talk and Q and A with Ian and Nick and a reception. The play is currently on a UK tour and begins a 7-week season at the Arts Theatre on 18 October.

The Royal British Legion has launched a mass movement to say ‘Thank You’ to all who served, sacrificed, and changed our world during the First World War. The charity is calling on mass involvement from the public to mark the centenary of the end of the First World War. Many events have been organised in the run-up to 11 November to say ‘Thank You’ to those who put Britain on the path to becoming what it is today.

Ian Hislop and Nick Newman’s The Wipers Times – a stage adaptation of their award-winning BBC film – tells the true and extraordinary story of the satirical newspaper created in the mud and mayhem of the Somme, interspersed with comic sketches and spoofs from the vivid imagination of those on the front line.

In a bombed out building during the First World War in the Belgian town of Ypres (mispronounced Wipers by British soldiers), two officers discover a printing press and create a newspaper for the troops. Far from being a somber journal about life in the trenches they produced a resolutely cheerful, subversive and very funny newspaper designed to lift the spirits of the men on the frontline.

Defying enemy bombardment, gas attacks and the disapproval of many of the top Brass, The Wipers Times rolled off the press for two years and was an extraordinary tribute to the resilience of the human spirit in the face of overwhelming adversity. The production originally launched one hundred years after the Battle of the Somme and publication of The Wipers Times.