Soldier On is inspired by the stories writer/director Jonathan Lewis (writer of multi award-winning Our Boys) workshopped with British servicemen and women and their families over a five year period.
The play returns to London following a sold out national tour to commemorate the end of the First World War.
The result is “as funny as it is heart-breaking” and lifts the lid on the vastness and complexity of Britain’s often overlooked and incredibly broad military community, the wives, partners, mothers, children and, of course, the servicemen and women themselves, and how they cope with the emotional, mental and physical effects and stresses of modern military service and its after effects.
In a bold initiative, and putting the play’s premise into action, the cast includes ex-service personnel as well as professional actors from Producer Amanda Faber’s Award Winning Theatre Company, The Soldiers’ Arts Academy cic.
The mixed cast brings a veracity and a genuine emotion seldom achieved in theatre. Audiences say they cannot tell who is an actor, or who is the veteran, and that question has them gripped from start to finish.
The play employs music, dance and mixed media. It is by turns viscerally realistic, shockingly funny, and intensely emotional.
Jonathan Lewis says, “Soldier On celebrates the power of Story in the healing process. Soldier On is here to say : You are not alone.”