Birdsong

Sebastian Faulks, Rachel Wagstaff

• Publisher: Oberon Books
• Year: 2010
• Print ISBN: 9781849430685
• eBook ISBN: 9781849439312
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: British Drama

While staying as the guest of a factory owner in pre-First World War France, Stephen Wraysford embarks on a passionate affair with Isabelle, the wife of his host. The affair changes them both for ever.A few years later Stephen finds himself back in the same part of France, but this time as a soldier in the Battle of the Somme, the bloodiest encounter in British military history. As his men die around him, Stephen turns to his enduring love for Isabelle for the strength to continue and to save something for future generations.
For the first time, this beautiful and terrible story about love, courage and the endurance of the human spirit is brought to the stage in a version by Rachel Wagstaff, directed by famed director Trevor Nunn.

ACT ONE

SCENE ONE

April 22^nd 1916. A bar behind the lines in France. Music, laughter, chatting, smoke. ADAMS and EVANS sit together (sappers) and TIPPER and BRENNAN sit together (infantry).

SHAW: Ladies and gentlemen, pray silence please. And here we have, reporting for duty, your very one, your very own, Mrs Jackie Firebrace!

JACK: (Falsetto.) ’Ello boys… I see you brought yer muskets.

ALL: Loaded and ready to go.

JACK: And what’s your name then, dearie?

TIPPER: Michael Tipper.

JACK: And does your mother know you’re ’ere?

TIPPER/JACK: (Simultaneously.) She was the one wot sent me, daft cow!

JACK: Did you hear what Turner said about Evans this very morning? He said, Evans here, Evans weren’t fit to associate with pigs. So I stuck up for him. I said, oh yes he is!

EVANS: Cheeky bugger!

JACK: Now take Adams, Adams here, his relatives work in business. The iron and steel business. That’s right! His mother irons and his father steals…

BRENNAN: He’s got your number!

ADAMS: Leave it out, mate.

JACK: My ’usband finks I’m a proper lady. Wot you laughing at? I am a proper lady, me.

JACK adopts a falsetto. He yawns, brings SHAW into his act.

JACK: Do excuse me, officer. I’ve been having a spot of bother getting me kip.

SHAW: (In a policeman’s voice.) Is you residing in a peaceful neighbourhood, ma’am?

JACK: No! The people upstairs was jumping about and shouting at three o’clock this morning!

SHAW: How’s a lady meant to sleep?

JACK: I wasn’t sleeping.

SHAW: Well, what was you doing?

JACK: I was playing the saxophone.

Beat.

JACK: Still, after that, I slept like a log. Woke up in the fireplace…

Groans all round.

EVANS: Give us a song, eh Jack?

JACK: What’ll I sing? Hands across the sea?

SHAW: Hands across my bloody arse!

One of the sappers accompanies JACK on a musical instrument.

JACK: (Sings.)

At the club one evening Jones was telling all his pals

How much he hated girls despite their golden curls

‘You wouldn’t catch me with a girl, you bet your life’, said he

‘Girls possess no charms for me,’

Then one chap there at Jones began to leer

Picked up his cane and said to him, ‘Come here…’

The rest join in for the chorus:

Hold your hand out naughty boy

Hold your hand out naughty boy

Last night in the pale moonlight

I saw you, I saw you

With a nice girl in the Park

You were strolling full of joy

And you told her you’d never kissed a girl before

Hold your hand out naughty boy.

The men applaud.

TIPPER: Not bad. For a sewer rat.

ADAMS: What’s that s’posed to mean?

BRENNAN: Leave it, pal.

ADAMS: No, go on, pal.

TIPPER: Bloody sappers, hiding away from the Boche, crawling around underground like rats.

ADAMS: Hiding away? Hiding away?!

ADAMS squares up to TIPPER.

EVANS: Leave ’im be, mun. Let’s have another song.

BRENNAN: He didn’t mean anything by it. He’s new.

ADAMS: Where was he at Wipers, eh?

EVANS: Adams. Calm down, butt.

Beat.

ADAMS: I’ve been here too fucking long.

TURNER appears. Dishevelled.

JACK: You all right, Turner?

TURNER: I, I think I heard the B-Boche. Just above our tunnel.

JACK: You want me to come down, have a listen?

TURNER: I wouldn’t w-want to put you out –

SHAW: Jack’s been down t’tunnel all day –

TURNER: Could have been shellfire, c-course, but…

JACK: I’ll have a quick list...

Table of contents

• Front Cover
• Half-title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Characters
• Act One
• Act Two