3 min to read
Review: First Light @ Shaw Playhouse
A stark, powerful meditation on war, memory and truth
First Light @ Shaw Playhouse
As someone wit#h a real interest in history and having studied the First World War in some depth I was genuinely looking forward to First Light. The premise alone was enough to intrigue me: a play exploring the human cost of war beyond the battlefield, grappling with guilt, duty, and the forgotten stories of ordinary men. This was also poignant with them being from around the Manchester area.
Thankfully, the production delivered something that felt emotionally resonant and intellectually engaging.
🎠What is the play about
First Light written by Mark Hayhurst and revisits a brutal slice of history. It centres on a First World War soldier, Bert Ingham, who deserts the front, and on his friend and fellow soldier Alfie Longshaw their fates entwined in tragedy. The play unfolds across multiple timelines: the horrors of the trenches, and the aftermath back home, including the impact of their choices on family and friends.
Rather than glorify war, it interrogates the weight of duty, the fear and trauma of conflict, and the fallout for those left behind.
🔄 Structure & staging
The production uses a non-linear structure: scenes from the trenches, court martial, and civilian life overlap and bleed into each other. This layering, memories, premonitions, home and battlefield which gives the narrative a haunting, dream like clarity that makes the tragedy feel vivid and personal.
Set changes happen fluidly, often handled by the cast, with stark contrasts between the grim, mud soaked trenches and sparse domestic settings. It’s an effective visual metaphor: the war follows these men home, whether they survive it or not.
🎠Performances
The cast I saw delivered the material with seriousness and restraint. The emotional core is the fractured friendship between Bert and Alfie felt authentic, raw and, at times, painfully inevitable. It situates the audience right between empathy, frustration and horror exactly where this kind of narrative should live.
Particularly powerful were the scenes with the family, especially parents facing partial truths, unanswered questions, and the crushing social stigma of cowardice. The performances avoided sentimentality, leaning into a quieter, more heartbreaking honesty.
Silence plays a major part in this production pauses heavy with guilt, anguish and resignation and some of those moments were among the most affecting of the evening.
âś… What worked for me
- A serious, considered exploration of WW1 themes without romanticising sacrifice
- Ambitious structure, but coherent and emotionally effective
- Performances grounded in tension and empathy, not melodrama
- Themes that resonate academically and personally duty, fear, trauma, institutional cruelty
⚠️ What may challenge some spectators
- The subject matter is weighty, with little comic relief
- The non-linear narrative requires attention, and is deliberately disorienting
- Its emotional realism may feel stark or draining for audiences expecting something lighter
✨ Final thoughts
As someone fascinated by the First World War, I found First Light to be a compelling and thoughtful piece of theatre. It doesn’t aim to comfortit asks difficult questions and leaves many of them unresolved, which feels painfully true to the subject matter.
I left the theatre moved, sombre, and still thinking about it hours later. The play reminds us that war doesn’t end in the trenches its scars run through families, memory, and the stories we choose to tell.
If you’re interested in history, or drama that challenges and provokes, this is a production worth making time for.
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