The Accrington Pals

by Peter Whelan
Royal Exchange Theatre (2013)

2013 UK Theatre Award for Best Design and Lighting Design  

Cast
Emma Lowndes
Sarah Ridgeway
Rebecca Callard
Robin Morrisey
Sarah Belcher
Gerard Kearns
Sean Aydon
Simon Armstrong
Laura Elsworthy
Brendan Charleson

Composer: Valgeir Sigorroson 
Designer: Jonathan Fensom 
Lighting: Charles Balfour 
Sound: Emma Laxton 
Musical Direction: Howard Grey 
Movement: Ann Yee 
Voice & Dialect: Martin McKellan 
Fights: Terry King 
Assistant Director: Eduard Lewis 
Casting: Jerry Knight-Smith and Polly Jerrold 
Production Photographs: Jonathan Keenan 

★★★★ “The Accrington Pals is a revelation… It has found an ideal director in James Dacre. His production is meticulous and unflinching.” The Observer

★★★★ “Full of exquisite performances… Amid the fine ensemble work, this superb Royal Exchange revival is a world of daily toil, tough love and harsh words, of gossip and female confidences exchanged. To say that it leaves you emotionally shattered almost feels like an insult to those bygone souls and the horrors they faced but quietly shattering it is, all the same.” The Daily Telegraph 

★★★★”The piece has, as it were, come home. In James Dacre’s profoundly moving production it strikes me as one of the best plays ever about the first world war. For all the great poems, novels and movies produced by the First World War, nothing quite matches theatre for pulverising your emotions.” The Guardian 

★★★★ “Funny, touching and real: a marvellously instinctive ensemble piece.” The Times 

★★★★ “It chronicles in the round a vital piece of 20th-century history, showing the battlefield but concentrating on civilian life. It goes beyond documentary, drawing on a visionary stage vocabulary and creating individual stories that are both desolating and stirring… This is a perfect play for the Royal Exchange.  It’s a wonderful play for anywhere.” The Observer