Private
Peaceful
Two classroom activities:
1. Consider the Formats
2. Getting Dramatic
Consider the Formats
Consider the following four key
changes made by the filmmaker in
the adaptation of Private Peaceful.
Discuss as a class how you feel about
these ‘liberties’ taken?
Are you loyal to the book’s extra
subtleties and your own imagination
of it? Or are you glad of the film’s
clarifications and bolder strokes?
Consider the Formats
1. The establishing first scene of the First
World War.
• What do we gain?
– We know exactly where we are from the outset.
A First World War story.
– “The reason that the First World War has always
resonated with young people is that a lot of
young people were the cannon fodder, dying for
a cause that they really didn’t understand.”
- Simon Reade, the screenwriter for the film
• What do we lose?
– It sacrifices the book’s mystery and slow-burn
reveal.
Consider the Formats
2. Tommo going to war alone first.
• What do we gain?
– “To tear the rift still wider between the Peaceful brothers, [the
filmmakers sent] Tommo to the Front in advance of Charlie.
Charlie resists partly for political reasons – he doesn’t want
to fight a capitalists’ war – and for personal reasons: he
doesn’t want to abandon his pregnant wife and soon-to-beborn child.” - Simon Reade, screenwriter for the film
– Extra plot power. It “ups the stakes” of the character and
adds realistic social context.
• What do we lose?
– The crucial character point that Tommo always follows his
older brother; the delayed introduction of Molly.
– Character. The touching formative scenes in infant school
where Molly protects Tommo; the sense she’s always been
there.
Consider the Formats
3. Big Joe is less prominent in the film.
• What do we gain?
– A clearer narrative focus on Charlie and Tommo
while retaining the period themes of protection of
versus intolerance of Big Joe’s difference (‘lunatic
asylum’).
• What do we lose?
– A celebration of innocence and unending childhood
shown through an equal part for a third Peaceful
brother at odds with the world. The entire chapter is
cut where Big Joe was feared dead and found on the
‘heaven’ of the church roof, which so poignantly cues
his oranges and lemons song sung defiantly at the
death by Charlie.
Consider the Formats
4. More of the Colonel in the film. (Not just brief,
telling extra lines and scenes – e.g. the faltering
confrontation with Charlie in the pub where he
embodies pre-war England in decline – but the
way a ‘star’ actor can dominate a film.)
• What do we gain from Richard Griffiths’
performance?
– A powerful reading and visualisation of the colonel
and his Boer War England. A brilliant stereotype.
• What do we lose?
– Sometimes these less-restrained ‘star’ performances
can distort a story or distract.
Consider the Formats
Summarising essay:
• Films have to make cuts, simplify.
Explore the losses and gains of this.
Aim at a comparative appreciation of
the subtlety of literary fiction but also
of film’s different – more direct –
impact.
Getting Dramatic
• Today you will be trying your hand at
a dramatic adaptation of a portion of
Private Peaceful.
• First, as a group read through the
worksheet:
Example dramatisation of Five to Five
(penultimate chapter) and the letters
from Mother and Molly p.157, 160
Getting Dramatic
• Now we will read together, aloud, the
full chapter Nearly Five To One.
• In preparation for adapting it into a
dramatic scene, imagine you have
been asked to write this key scene
missing from the film (or write it as a
playscript if you prefer).
Getting Dramatic
For acting out this portion of the story:
– Write for a group of 6: Big Joe, Tommo,
Molly, Mother, The Colonel and a female
‘Village.’
– Your set/stage should include a ‘higher’
level above the human –
sky/moon/heaven/church tower.
Suggestions for the first scenes are done for
you on the worksheet: Students’ own
dramatisation of Nearly Five To One.