Not About Heroes

Not about Heroes explores the relationship between World War One poets Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon. The action is replayed through the eyes of an older Sassoon, as he recalls his friendship with Owen.

Their relationship begins when Owen arrives at Craiglockhart War Hospital in 1917, suffering the effects of shellshock. Here he meets Sassoon, who has been diagnosed as suffering from “war neurosis” as a result of his protest against the war.

The course of their friendship and their poetry is shown through extracts from the real diaries and letters of the two men, right up to their last meeting – when Sassoon was recovering from a head wound that would end his military career while Owen waited to return to the Western Front, where he would be killed shortly afterwards.

A play laced throughout with beautiful and familiar poetry, this is a moving piece of theatre with a real historical and literary relevance today.

This is an amateur production.