Review: NOT ABOUT HEROES, Wilton's Music Hall

Director Tim Baker concludes his national tour of Stephen MacDonald's Not About Heroes at Wilton's Music Hall on the centennial anniversary of the Armistice. The play, which details the strong friendship between Wilfred Owen and Siegfriend Sassoon, has been acclaimed worldwide since its debut in 1982.

Owain Gwynn and Daniel Llewelyn-Williams become the poets and, even though they're the only two actors on the dimly lit stage, the ghosts of the thousands who died loom in the darkness.

It's 1917 and Owen and Sassoon meet at Craiglockhart Hospital; they grow closer as they bond over their shared love for literature and poetry, revealing their fears and spite for those who are dragging the tragic events longer than necessary.

Llewelyn-Williams is heartbreaking as he plays the descent of decorated hero and Owen's idol Sassoon. Hints of what his character was before the war seep through his performance with sarcastic and witty remarks as their tie strengthens and the soldiers become fonder of each other. However, Baker's hand is rather light on the romantic subtext, which is surprising given the subject.

Through mentorship and affinity, Sassoon builds Gwynn's Owen up and helps him refine his writings into the works of the piercing poet history remembers. The latter evolves his Owen from a shaking and too-shy fan to a well-rounded artist who established war poetry as a genre.

They're tender and graceful, unafraid to display the historical figures as men rather than raising them up to unreachable heights. Sassoon's young bravado influences Owen as much as his reflective yet temperamental pieces do, developing their bond further and shredding the first to bits when his beloved friend dies.

Designer Oliver Harman divides the stage into two split levels with one, closer to the audience, showing an interior and one, upstage, resembling a cold and desolate no-man's-land. The earthy tones of the set clash with the frigid lighting curated by Kevin Heyes, resulting in a sometime ghost-like atmosphere which drives the concept straight to the heart of the matter.

The all-male cast and creatives deliver a chilling recount of a delicate albeit severed relationship between a couple of men who shared more than mere artistic affinity. As finely directed by Baker, Macdonald's play doesn't spare the public any grief showing more than the birth of some of the most harrowing poems of the 20th Century.

Not About Heroes runs at Wilton's Music Hall until 11 November.

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