The story behind the audacious 1944 escape from the Luftwaffe’s Stalag Luft III jail camp is to be retold in a brand new play at London’s Alexandra Palace, which was itself used as an internment camp for German, Austrian and Hungarian “enemy aliens” throughout the first world battle.
Tom, Dick and Harry will recount the breakout of 76 allied airmen from the camp at Sagan in Germany (now Żagań in Poland) which impressed the 1963 movie The Nice Escape, that includes an all-star forged and an exciting although fictitious motorcycle exploit for Steve McQueen. The play is written by Theresa Heskins, Andrew Pollard and Michael Hugo with Heskins additionally directing.
The writing staff’s analysis was carried out on the Nationwide Archives. “The primary file we opened had been labeled till 1972,” mentioned Heskins. “It mentioned ‘prime secret’ on the entrance in a purple stamp. The subsequent doc mentioned ‘closed till 1995’ and mentioned ‘most secret’. The third one mentioned ‘to be destroyed’.” In addition to data from the Swiss Crimson Cross, the Battle Workplace and air ministry papers, the staff learn technical paperwork that had been drawn up by a few of these concerned within the escape from the camp.
Heskins, who has by no means seen The Nice Escape, was struck throughout her analysis by the ingenuity of the prisoners and mentioned the play was an inspiring story about “human endeavour and the magic of collaboration”. Heskins known as the drama “nice escapism” and added: “The story is comedian, tragic, an journey, and fairly considerate at instances.” It had been a privilege, she mentioned, to discover the archives: “And distressing, too, as a result of these are actual lives in entrance of you.”
The play’s title comes from the code names for the escape and decoy tunnels that have been secretly dug over a number of months by prisoners who transported baggage of earth inside a picket vaulting horse, which in addition they hid inside. Potential digging instruments have been picked up wherever attainable: a listing inside the camp after the escape revealed that 1,219 knives, 478 spoons and 582 forks had gone lacking. The prisoners additionally cast paperwork and id playing cards and ready their very own maps.
Three of the escapers discovered freedom, 73 have been captured and 50 of them have been shot on the private orders of Adolf Hitler, in opposition to objections from senior German military officers in keeping with MI5 paperwork launched in 2000.
Heskins was intrigued to be taught that Stalag Luft III had its personal theatre that the prisoners had been allowed to construct. “They have been supplied with costumes and devices by the Berliner Ensemble and different skilled theatres they usually placed on performs that the captors got here to see as properly. All of them sat and watched performs collectively. We’ve bought some wonderful pictures of a revue they placed on known as Women, Women, Women.”
One doc Heskins discovered, written in 1950 and generally known as Report X, mirrored on future retellings of the escape. Its creator, RGK Walker, acknowledged: “I really feel it could be higher to emphasize the spirit and organisation behind the escape fairly than glorying the fortunate few who have been chosen out of a hat to take the ultimate threat.”
The large Victorian theatre at Alexandra Palace reopened for normal efficiency in 2018 after 80 years and an £18.8m lottery-grant restoration. In the course of the first world battle about 3,000 males – Austrians, Hungarians and Germans – have been interned at what was generally known as “the individuals’s palace” when it was requisitioned by the federal government. Its theatre was used for performances, in addition to serving as a chapel and a hospital. Belgian refugees have been additionally housed at Alexandra Palace.
Tom, Dick and Harry shall be staged in-the-round, mentioned Heskins, “which makes for a spirit of togetherness that may be very a lot consistent with this story.” In-the-round theatre invitations audiences to “carry their creativeness” with them, she added – becoming for a narrative that unfolds not simply in a jail camp but additionally 30ft underground, in an plane and throughout occupied Europe as the lads’s nice escape continues past the camp’s fence.
The play opens in June on the New Vic theatre in Newcastle-under-Lyme, the place Heskins is creative director. It then excursions to MAST in Southampton in July and Alexandra Palace theatre later that month.