Mobilising the Home Front: British Theatre in 1916

“What’s ‘appenin’ is passin’ so quick yer don’t realize it now, but the memory of what yer do, and what yer don’t do will last as long as yer live - and yer children after yer - the question I’m askin’ yer now, will be asked [then??] - ‘what did yer do for yer country’ yer’ll never get away from it! It’ll find yer in yer ‘ome- it’ll find yer in the works - it’ll find yer at the pub - it’ll foller yer to the day of judgement! What did yer do for yer country?”

This heartfelt speech from the 1916 play My Superior Office is given by Dick, a young soldier who has been wounded on the Western Front and just returned home after weeks recuperating in hospital. With its echoes of the famous ‘What did you do in the Great War’ poster, Dick could easily have been speaking to a group of potential recruits. Instead however he is addressing civilians: working men and women who, as Dick makes clear, also have an important a role to play in winning the war. My Superior Officer is not alone in addressing how those at home need to contribute to the war effort. In War Mates, another returning soldier berates his family: in this case for supporting impending strikes. Parodying the the popular hit ‘Keep the Home Fires Burning’, he tells them to ‘Keep the home factories and the home mines going – keep ‘em turning out more and more till they bursts with the strain. Keep the home men training […] That’s the song you want’. The play culminates in a powerful address from the union leader calling on civilian workers and soldiers to stand together as the ‘war mates of England’.

It has long been recognised that the theatre played an important role in mobilizing young men in the first phase of the war. Yet, as this paper will demonstrate, theatre also played a key role in the second phase of the war: this time in mobilizing the civilian population. In plays such as Too Late, The Great Redding Street Burglary, My Superior Officer, and War Mates, thrift and subscription to war bonds was encouraged; industrial unrest was lambasted; and appropriate attitudes and behaviours were promoted. Examining production histories in their historical context, this paper will argue that these plays were a response to the new and particular challenges faced in 1916. It will further argue that from 1916 the theatre sought to erode the fissure developing between those fighting and those ‘at home’ by presenting the whole nation as active participants in a total war.