Bamforth essay

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Adam Noctor

Bamforth Essay                  

The Long and the Short and the Tall is set in the Malayan jungle in the Second World War. The British army have retreated to Singapore at the end of the Malayan Peninsula and the Japanese army are moving down the peninsula advancing on them. The play is about a British patrol sent out from Singapore to discover the movements of the Japanese army. The patrol have stopped in an old mining hut to rest and the play concentrates on the relationships between the soldiers. The author Willis Hall wrote the play in 1958 for the Edinburgh Fringe. In the audience there would have been many war veterans so Willis Hall had to involve military slang and make the play sound realistic.

The play is about human survival stretched to its limits. You can feel the sense of isolation when seven men are trapped in a hut and their only contact with the outside world is a faulty radio transmitter. In the first act of the play the situation hasn’t sunk in and all the men are having a banter and a laugh. However, when a prisoner is captured, tempers flare and authority is questioned.

The main officers in the play are Mitchem and Johnstone. Mitchem is the sergeant in charge and controls the group. He is a war veteran and knows what he is doing. He doesn’t allow his emotions to affect his decisions and judgement. We don’t know where Mitchem is from but judging by his language we can tell he is a northerner.

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Johnstone is a corporal and is Mitchems’ right hand man. Although he is second in command, he does not have as much skill in leading troops as Mitchem. He is an unlikeable character who tries to control the men by using brute force and pulling rank on the others. When the Japanese soldier is captured Johnstone has no respect for him and doesn’t see him as a human being, treating him very cruelly.

Lance-corporal Macleish is a Scotsman who has just recently been promoted to this rank. He is very serious about his role and tries to keep Bamforth in ...

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