March 22 1944 — The Sketch reports that Noël Coward’s Post Mortem, set during WWI, has had its world premiere during WWII. The lead character’s mother was played by… er, Brian McIrvine. Why? Well, the show took place in Oflag VII.b, a POW camp in Eichstätt.
Here’s young Brian in another scene, in which he plays John Cavan’s former fiancée Monica Chellerton, while John Peacock, standing stage left, plays not Graham Chapman but ‘Kitty Harris’.
According to the Sketch, “Coward gave them special permission to perform [it]”. He’d decided, after writing it — immediately after Private Lives, intriguingly — that it wasn’t good enough to put on (and he may have had a point. When it was first done professionally, in 1992, it got mixed reviews.)
What’s most important about this, though, is not the relative strengths of Coward’s plays. No. Clearly, it’s military chaps in frocks – something which has occupied Proper Historians. Not least because there was a lot of it about at the time.
This wasn’t the only Coward play to be staged in a POW camp. Not by a long way. According to historian Clare Makepeace, the chaps liked Blithe Spirit best.
…and it was far from the only show that the B! O! B, O, Y, S, boys to entertain YOU put on. The Imperial War Museum has a splendid photo in its archives of a theatrical production at Stalag Luft III in Poland.
King’s College Cambridge has an archive of materials (thanks to one of its post-war librarians, who studied there pre-war, and was a prisoner during in three camps, including Oflag VIIb). Their trove includes a shot of a pantomime called Dossing Dulcie.
Not only were these shows allowed in POW camps, they were
done with the support and aid of the German authorities. Perhaps the Germans felt that if the prisoners were busy with concerts and variety shows they would think less about digging tunnels.
The men who took on the female parts went to great lengths to be convincing, learning how to
walk toe to heel, take small steps, and slide gracefully into chairs.
Indeed, their dedication went further than that…
Costumes were made from sheets, white shirts, mosquito netting, or “clothing from private parcels sent … from home” (Oh, aye? “Dear Mum, you know that gold lamé number of yours…?”)
One wig “was ingeniously created strand by strand from Red Cross parcel packing”. Even if the… *ahem* camp authorities were supportive, though, the level of assistance enjoyed at Oflag VA seems remarkable
As the sadly late Clare Makepeace says in her book Captives of War, the idea was mimesis, or convincing imitation, not mimicry, which is
imitation with … the aim of creating a comic effect, as exemplified by the pantomime ‘dame’, who appears oversized and clumsy
And convince they pretty much did. One man, Captain Jon Mansel, wrote of Brian McIrvine (who was a professional actor, to give him his due):
I’m bloody sure if he was billed as a girl at a London Theatre no-one would question her sex. It’s unbelievable.
But perhaps none was ever as convincing as Don ‘Pinky’ Smith, described as “gorgeous” by Corporal Jack White after seeing him in Up The Pole at Stalag 383 in May 1944.
Makepeace says that
according to White, 14,000 orders were placed for a copy of the image: an extraordinarily large number for a camp that contained approximately 4,700 prisoners.
Stalag 383 was also a camp which staged dances every Wednesday and Saturday, and Sergeant Major Andrew Hawarden confided in his diary that
several lads dress as ladies to give it a proper atmosphere
Not that there’s anything we need to discuss when it comes to men in single-sex institutions. Good heavens, no.
One final point, though: if Blithe Spirit was one of their favourites, someone must have played Madame Arcati. I’m sorry to have to inform you that I didn’t come across any photos of that. If you know, or are, an Imperial War Museum archivist, do get in touch.
