About Tommy
by Thor Bjorn Krebs, translated by David Duchin

Overview

About the play

About the author

What price would you pay for peace? Could you tell a soldier not to fight? Even when he’s staring down the barrel of gun?

When Tommy joins the Danish army, he is looking for a way to make a difference. Posted to Croatia as part of the UN’s peace-keeping

mission during the early 90s, he is under strict instructions not to shoot. But when he and his comrades find themselves in the firing line,

Tommy begins to fight back.

About Tommy tells the absurd and tragicomic story of a young soldier trying to preserve his humanity against all the odds. Based on real accounts of the recent war in the former Yugoslavia, it is a wonderfully irreverent exploration of how far we will go to make peace – when everyone else is determined to do the opposite.

“There’s always some jerk with a gun that spoils it all….”

About Tommy was the process of 3 years development.

Brother Tongue’s proposal for the play was short-listed for the 2008 Oxford Samuel Beckett Theatre Trust Award and awarded a research and development grant. Following this our ideas were presented at the Barbican Pit Theatre on 16th November, 2007. It was performed by Beatrice Curnew, Hywel Morgan and Daniel Percival with video design by Riccardo M. Alfano. To view a showreel of the workshopped ideas go to: http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=tZwc4_lCukc

Previously, a staged reading of About Tommy was performed at Theatre 503 on 16th December, 2006. It was performed by Christopher Brandon, Shereen Martineau and Oliver Ryan.