Actor and stand up David William Bryan plays his great-uncle, Arthur 'Joe' Robinson, in a (mostly) true story. Joe is a young man in Birkenhead in 1939. He has a job. And there's a girl in his life (almost). But experiencing a Luftwaffe bomb attack on the Liverpool area dirves him to join the army. He's trained, shipped about, and ends up heading for the Fra East, only for his ship to be sunk by Japanese bombers. Rescued, and taken on to Singapore... just as the island is foreced to surrender. Robinson has to endure 4 years as a POW, working as lave labour, seriously ill, his fellow prisoners dying. But he survives, just, and finally makes it home. What kind of life can he expect?
Bryan portrays this in dramatic and energetyiuc fashion, with several on stage costume changes, and giving voice to host of peoplein Joe's life. He does a good job of bringing across the horrors of war, has his characters well deliniated, and there's a clear narrative arc. He even manages to work a few laughs into a very sad subject. The performance deserved the standing ovation he received in the end, if only for the physical toll each perfomance must take on his body.
It's good to see a war story that is not about sucess of glory, but simply celebrates survival.
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