Doctor Scroggy's War is a 2014 play by Howard Brenton, commissioned by Shakespeare's Globe, where it premiered on 12 September 2014, marking the centenary of World War One. It is centred on the fictional soldier Jack Twigg and his involvement with Harold Gillies.
Early in World War One, Gillies tries and fails to save the life of a British airman. Meanwhile, Jack Twigg goes to see his parents to tell them he has joined up, into the London Irish Rifles. His father (a working-class Thames waterman) has his doubts, since this will mean Twigg postponing his hard-won scholarship to Oxford University, but they eventually agree. He also introduces them to his friend Lord Ralph Dulwich, with whom he then goes to a party hosted by Sir John French. Impressing French, he is given a staff appointment which Dulwich had hoped to gain and the two friends fall out. Twigg also catches the eye of Penelope Wedgewood, with whom he spends the night and loses his virginity.
In France, Twigg is involved in the organisation of the Battle of Loos, though his advice to bring the reserves closer to the front line is ignored by French despite its being backed by Douglas Haig. Twigg leaves the staff and goes to the front-line, where he receives a facial injury. He is then sent to Gillies' hospital, where he begins to despair and wishes to be back at the front. This continues even when faced with Gillies' alter-ego Dr Scroggy - he goes around the wards dressed as a highland soldier to raise his patients' morale. Queen Mary comes to visit the hospital and Penelope, Ralph and Twigg reconcile. However, soon afterwards Penelope decides to become a pacifist and she and Twigg break up angrily. Gillies tries to convince him not to go back to the front, but is unable to do so. The play ends with Twigg back on the Western Front.
All Quiet on the Western Front is a semi-autobiographical novel by Erich Maria Remarque, a German veteran of World War I. The book describes the German soldiers' extreme physical and mental trauma during the war as well as the detachment from civilian life felt by many upon returning home from the war. It is billed by some as "the greatest war novel of all time".
The Life of Henry the Fifth, often shortened to Henry V, is a history play by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written near 1599. It tells the story of King Henry V of England, focusing on events immediately before and after the Battle of Agincourt (1415) during the Hundred Years' War. In the First Quarto text, it was titled The Cronicle History of Henry the fift, and The Life of Henry the Fifth in the First Folio text.
A Farewell to Arms is a novel by American writer Ernest Hemingway, set during the Italian campaign of World War I. First published in 1929, it is a first-person account of an American, Frederic Henry, serving as a lieutenant in the ambulance corps of the Italian Army. The novel describes a love affair between the American expatriate and an English nurse, Catherine Barkley.
Henry V is a 1944 British Technicolor epic film adaptation of William Shakespeare's play of the same title. The on-screen title is The Chronicle History of King Henry the Fift with his battell fought at Agincourt in France. It stars Laurence Olivier, who also served as a director. The play was adapted for the screen by Olivier, Dallas Bower, and Alan Dent. The score was composed by William Walton.
"The Purple Testament" is the nineteenth episode of the American television anthology series The Twilight Zone. It is "the story of a man who can forecast death". It originally aired on February 12, 1960, on CBS.
Oh! What a Lovely War is a 1969 British epic comedy historical musical war film directed by Richard Attenborough, with an ensemble cast, including Maggie Smith, Dirk Bogarde, John Gielgud, John Mills, Kenneth More, Laurence Olivier, Jack Hawkins, Corin Redgrave, Michael Redgrave, Vanessa Redgrave, Ralph Richardson, Ian Holm, Paul Shelley, Malcolm McFee, Jean-Pierre Cassel, Nanette Newman, Edward Fox, Susannah York, John Clements, Phyllis Calvert and Maurice Roëves.
Sir Harold Delf Gillies was a New Zealand otolaryngologist and father of modern plastic surgery for the techniques he devised to repair the faces of soldiers coming back from the trenches.
The Christmas truce was a series of widespread unofficial ceasefires along the Western Front of the First World War around Christmas 1914.
Unknown Soldier is a fictional war comics character in the DC Comics Universe. The character was created by Joe Kubert, Robert Kanigher and Irv Novick, first appearing in Our Army At War #168. The character is named after The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington National Cemetery, Virginia. The character of the Unknown Soldier is symbolic of the nameless soldiers that have fought throughout the United States' wars; as stated in his first featured story "They Came From Shangri-La!", he is the "man who no one knows — but — is known by everyone!" Another nickname for the character used in the series is "The Immortal G.I."
"Tales from the Public Domain" is the fourteenth episode of the thirteenth season of the American animated television series The Simpsons. It originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on March 17, 2002. It is the third trilogy episode of the series, which had become annual since the twelfth season's "Simpsons Tall Tales", consisting of three self-contained segments that are based on historical stories. The first segment puts Homer Simpson in the role of Odysseus in the ancient Greek epic poem the Odyssey. The second segment tells the story of Joan of Arc, and the third and final segment lampoons William Shakespeare's tragedy Hamlet.
Oh, Doctor Beeching! is a BBC television sitcom, written by David Croft and Richard Spendlove, and produced for the BBC. After a pilot for the programme was broadcast in August 1995, full production was green-lighted, with the sitcom running for two series from 8 July 1996 to 28 September 1997. The series focuses on the lives of the staff who run the fictional station of Hatley on a rural branch line who find themselves looking for the means to keep their station open in the wake of news that Dr. Richard Beeching has promoted plans for the closing of many branch lines and their respective stations.
The Deviant Strain is a BBC Books original novel written by Justin Richards and based on the long-running British science fiction television series Doctor Who. It was published on 8 September 2005, alongside Only Human and The Stealers of Dreams. It features the Ninth Doctor, Rose Tyler and Captain Jack. It is the first original novel to feature Captain Jack.
Home of the Brave is a 2006 American drama film written and directed by Irwin Winkler starring Samuel L. Jackson, Jessica Biel, Brian Presley, Curtis Jackson, Christina Ricci and Chad Michael Murray that follows the lives of four Army National Guard soldiers in Iraq and their return to the United States. The film was shot in Ouarzazate, Morocco and in Spokane, Washington. It was a critical and box office bomb.
Strange Meeting is a novel by Susan Hill about the First World War. The title of the book is taken from a poem by the First World War poet Wilfred Owen. The novel was first published by Hamish Hamilton in 1971 and then by Penguin Books in 1974.
"The Shakespeare Code" is the second episode of the third series of the revived British science fiction television series Doctor Who. It was broadcast on BBC One on 7 April 2007. According to the BARB figures this episode was seen by 7.23 million viewers and was the fifth most popular broadcast on British television in that week. Originally titled "Love's Labour's Won", was also titled by David Tennant as "Theatre of Doom" during the "David's Video Diaries 2", part of the Series 3 DVD, the episode was re-titled as a reference to The Da Vinci Code.
Nicholas Patrick Day is an English actor, who is currently the narrator on the Netflix series Myths & Monsters.
All Quiet on the Western Front is an epic anti-war television film produced by ITC Entertainment. It was released on November 14, 1979. Based on the 1929 book of the same name by Erich Maria Remarque, it stars Richard Thomas and Ernest Borgnine. Directed by Delbert Mann, this film is a joint British and American production for which most of the filming took place in Czechoslovakia.
"Lost Souls" is an original BBC Radio 4 audio play written by Joseph Lidster and is a spin-off from the British science fiction television series Torchwood, itself a spin-off from Doctor Who. It aired on 10 September 2008 in the Afternoon Play slot as part of Radio 4's Big Bang Day which celebrated the switching on of CERN's Large Hadron Collider that same day. Andrew Marr introduced the audio play live from CERN. An mp3 version of the audio play was freely available until 18 September, when the play was released on CD and as a purchasable download.
Army Surgeon is a 1942 American film directed by A. Edward Sutherland and starring Jane Wyatt and Kent Taylor. The plot is about a female surgeon who pretends to be a nurse so she can serve on the front line during World War I.
Catherine Bailey is a British stage, television and film actress.