Henley Players

This lyrical and absorbing play is set in Accrington, Lancashire, during the Great War. The 'Pals' are the men from the local volunteer battalion, who march off to war in high spirits.

Their experiences in the trenches are contrasted with the lives of the women back home – working, worrying and trying to keep cheerful against the odds. May, who runs a vegetable stall, is hard-working and tough minded, while her lodger, Tom, is idealistic and naïve in comparison.

The play is poignant, with amusing interludes, and gives us a fascinating glimpse of the changes and challenges of civilian life in northern England in wartime: the 'knocker-up', the clatter of clogs, the hooters calling the workers to the mills, the banter and the hardship.