Richard Lutz gives his view of a haunting war play.

Two hesitant doubts about staging the Sebastian Faulks instant classic on trench warfare and the Somme campaign:

I am a sceptic when to comes to novels, no matter how good, being translated to the unreal world of the theatre. And I have a thing about tough combat played out under the lights. Most times it doesn’t work.

But this does.

Faulks’s story is about the grind, horror and blood of the First World Wart through a range of eyes- even those (at a glimpse) of the Germans. It is a multi-strand performance from the tunnels and trenches and mass assaults to the bars of Amiens and the drawing rooms of the French.

The staginess of  actors looking like shell shocked troops soon fades and  Faulks’ narrative does grab you: a young officer who learns to lead but has a secret past that he is trying to wrest back from his history; the sapper who loses everything including a little son back in London; the French woman who has to compromise to survive four years of incessant war and loss; the petrified solider who puts a gun to his head before the Somme attack.

George Banks conjures up Lt  Stephen Wraysford from a callow youth out of his depth to a rounded but still dazed and furious veteran who cannot leave the war alone – or let it leave him alone. He is driven, half mad, to both finding his former French lover and leading his men to death – quite a handful when you come to think of it.

And Peter Duncan – whose credits go back as far the movie  Stardust thirty-odd years ago- is  the brave loyal man who will dig under enemy territory until he drops from exhaustion and the burden of personal loss.

A third star is Victoria Spalding whose doubledecker set can take in the trenches, the tunnels, the domesticity of a smug French family and a sleazy bar filled with the drunk and dispossessed of war. A visual tour de force.

The music of birdsong, so simple and clear, chirps whenever there is a glimmer of light in this play. And I won’t let it be known whether you hear its charms at the end. That would be telling.

Birmingham Rep until 22nd March. Tix: 0121 236 4455.