In Britain, The Wednesday Play was a series of original dramas broadcast by the BBC on - you've guessed it - Wednesday nights, between 1964 and 1970. At home, it usually signalled the turning off of the TV, and for many years that was my bedtime. The Wednesday Play and its successor, Play for Today (which was on a Thursday) were usually deemed "unsuitable for children" because they contained references to sex or worse. Some of them, such as the famous "Cathy Come Home", dealt with social issues; another, "The War Game", dealt so realistically with the threat of nuclear war that it was not broadcast on television until 1985. More often, the plays were simply what my mother used to call "way out".
I do not think my parents watched "Mad Jack", the play about Siegfried Sassoon that was broadcast in 1970, only three years after the death of the man himself. They would certainly not have thought it suitable for children, although I was fifteen by then and would probably have been allowed to watch it had I expressed a wish to do so. But I didn't, either because I didn't know what it was about or because I simply wasn't interested.
The play was written by a moderately successful screenwriter called Tom Clarke, who died in 1993. Clarke was born a few days before the end of the First World War, which may well explain his interest in the subject. In the Second World War, he had served in both the Royal Air Force and the Royal Artillery. His obituary suggests that he was something of a "character" and perhaps had a few personality traits in common with Sassoon. I doubt that they ever met.
In this production, the role of Sassoon is played by Michael Jayston, who at the time was an up-and-coming TV actor of 35. He spends much of the action staring into the middle distance on a beach, listening to the voice in his head, and the effect of this is oddly moving. Jayston has done great things in his career, but I would never have thought of him for Sassoon - he has a kind of gravitas that I suspect did not come naturally to the real Siegfried, though no doubt he was able to put it on when required, just as he could assume a false jollity in the company of his wartime comrades - which we also witness in the play. In the scenes where he approaches other hotel guests talking random nonsense summoned up by his nightmares, we see the more excitable, neurotic side of the character and we begin to understand the reasons why he was sent to Craiglockhart, but there is no denouement as such. We never get to meet Rivers or find out what happened next.
Nor do we ever get under the skin of Robert Graves, played by Michael Pennington (a former pupil of Dennis Silk and now a patron of the SSF). Pennington was then 27 but looked considerably younger, like the overgrown schoolboy Graves was in real life. Since Graves himself was still living, the character is disguised under the name "Geoffrey Cromlech". Cromlech spends his time observing the other officers with a mildly cynical air, and only comes into his own in the later scenes when he arrives to persuade Sassoon to go before a medical board. His motivation remains unclear.
Knowing as much as we do, from Sassoon's own account, about the real events behind the action, we might have expected more from the play, but the author may have been restricted by the sensibilities of Sassoon's family and friends. The performances of the two lead actors are difficult to fault, and several of the poems are worked neatly into the action. The play is currently available on Youtube. How long the BBC will allow it to stay there is anyone's guess. Make the most of the opportunity: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X5ZZ134kjnY
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