Last year, the battlefields of Ypres were transformed into the set of R.C. Sherriff’s Journey’s End. The show received rave reviews, one calling it “enthralling, good-humoured, finally heart-rending”. This autumn, the cast and crew of MESH Theatre return to Belgium to mark the 100th anniversary of Armistice. Here, director Sally Woodcock describes what it’s like to recreate history on the …
Marking 100 Years since the Battle of Passchendaele
On 31 July 2017, events in Belgium will commemorate 100 years since the start of the Battle of Passchendaele – a series of attacks on Ypres in the country’s Flanders region. With 450,000 casualties by its end on 10 November 1917, this particular campaign is known not only as one of the bloodiest of World War I, but also one …
A Guide to Remembrance Day Travel in Flanders
It was during a moment of contemplation in war-ravaged Ypres in 1915 that Canadian physician Lieutenant-Colonel John McCrae noticed how quickly poppies grew from the graves of the recently buried. He reportedly penned the famous ‘In Flanders Fields’ the very next day, while sitting in the back of an ambulance: “In Flanders fields the poppies blow Between the crosses, row …