The Wipers Times, Salisbury Playhouse

IT'S the brilliantly British story of humour amid the horrors.

A war time play which is laugh out loud funny is a rare find, but then this is one extraordinary true story.

Set in Ypres in 1916, the Great War brings together two young officers with a sense or irony and a talent for witty prose, a sergeant who was a printer before signing up and an abandoned printing press.

Between them, they dream up The Wipers Times, named after a play on the soldiers slang for Ypres, a magazine satirising life in the trenches which became a sell out success and a lifeline for those fighting on the frontline.

Fast forward 100 years and two modern day satirical writers bring the utterly spellbinding story of Wipers Times editor Captain Fred Roberts and his deputy Lieutenant Jack Pearson to the stage.

It's been a labour or love for Private Eye's Ian Hislop and Nick Newman, old friends who have been writing together since their school days, since Have I Got News For You favourite Hislop came across the story 15 years ago.

At the time, the pair joked, they were told there was no interest in The Great War. Then that the market was oversaturated with the likes of War Horse and Songbird.

But a film documentary finally made it to TV in 2013 and their wonderful new play with music has now made it to the stage.

Bookended with a failed post-war Fleet Street job interview for charismatic Roberts, the show is hilarious yet poignant and perfectly paced by a superb cast of eight. Scene changes are quick, cleverly accompanied by popular songs from the time.

James Dutton makes a smiling, likeable Roberts, finding fun in the absurd and leading his troops with affection and humour. His brilliant double act with George Kemp as Pearson is a perfect contrast with the relationship between two officers in high command - the multi-talented Dan Tetsell as astute General Mitford and Sam Ducane as the completely humourless Lieutenant Colonel Howfield.

Higher ranking officers are often the brunt of jokes in The Wipers Times, where nothing seems off limits and a tot of rum is considered the best way to make it through.

Dark scenes of warfare, beneath the barbed-wire parapet of a trench, are in stark contrast to re-enactments of some of the paper's hysterical spoof adverts, comic songs, music hall sketches and poems.

This is a belated celebration of a talented pair unrecognised up until now for their contribution to morale on the frontline.

And it's a complete triumph from start to finish.

LORELEI REDDIN

The Wipers Times runs until Saturday.

Very limited tickets remain for the newly added matinee tomorrow afternoon (Wednesday). Tickets are otherwise sold out.

Box office: 01722 320333 or salisburyplayhouse.com