To The Green Fields Beyond
Directed by Sam Mendes at The Donmar Warehouse, Nick Whitby's play focused on the crew of a Great War tank on the eve of battle in August 1918.
Historical Advice:
Historical Adviser: Taff Gillingham
The Director asked Taff to give a talk to all the cast members on the life of a soldier of 1918 and especially members of the Tank Corps. Once again he was appointed Military Adviser and was asked to read through the script and make observations before rehearsals began. He was also asked to help the individual actors develop their characters.
Props:
Virtually every item used during the play was supplied by us - no matter how obscure the property buyers request! Every character had a full pack containing everything his 1918 counterpart would have had. Writing paper, revolvers, tank crew leather equipment and chainmail masks were all faithfully reproduced to original patterns.
Costume:
We provided the soldiers' uniforms - all correctly badged for a unit of the Tank Corps in August, 1918. Specialist uniform items including the proper overalls were found and copied to get as near as possible to the real thing. As Great War shirts are almost non-existent we had a quantity of these produced too in the original material. The Officer of the tank crew, Dougray Scott, was a Scot and even his tunic was adapted to conform to the Highland pattern. The overall effect was extremely realistic.