Olivier Award winner Howard Davies returns to the National Theatre to direct Sean O’Casey’s powerful anti-war play The Silver Tassie.

Set in Ireland during World War I, The Silver Tassie tells the story of the dashing Harry Heegan who, after leading his football team to victory, arrives home in swaggering celebration before grabbing his kit and heading to the trenches.

Told with acrid wit and dark vaudeville humour, the play sees Harry enter a nightmare world where men are reduced to cannon fodder and speak in mangled incantations. Months later when Harry returns home and attends the football club party, everyone apart from the shattered veterans dances and forgets.

Davies returns to the venue following recent productions of Children Of The Sun and The Last Of The Haussmans to direct this rarely performed piece that gives full expressions to the horror and waste of war.

The cast of the production includes Adam Best, Aidan Kelly, Stephen Kennedy, Aidan McArdle, Deirdre Mullins and Ronan Raftery.