My Boy Jack is a 1997 play by English actor David Haig. It tells the story of Rudyard Kipling and his grief for his son, John, who died in the First World War.
The title comes from Kipling's 1915 poem, My Boy Jack . [1]
My Boy Jack played at the Theatre Royal, Nottingham, in 2004. It then toured Oxford, Richmond, Brighton, Norwich, Cardiff and Cambridge, with the newly formed Haig Lang Productions. [2] In America, My Boy Jack has been performed under the title My Son Jack. [3]
A television drama based on Haig's play was filmed in August 2007, with Haig as Kipling and Daniel Radcliffe as Jack Kipling. [4] It was distributed by Granada [5] and Ecosse Films. [6] It was broadcast on ITV1 and TV3 (Ireland) at 9pm on Sunday 11 November 2007, Remembrance Day. [7]
In 1992 the Commonwealth War Graves Commission claimed to have identified John Kipling's body. However, Tonie and Valmai Holt (authors of the successful Major and Mrs Holt's Battlefield Guides) doubted the "identification" and researched John's life and death in detail, writing the first biography of John Kipling, entitled My Boy Jack? [8] In November 2007 the Imperial War Museum mounted an exhibition covering John Kipling's life and included a section on the Holts' doubts about the identification of his corpse. Subsequently, in January 2016, further research by Graham Parker and Joanna Legg confirmed the initial identification to be correct. [9] The ITV drama does not claim to be a documentary account, but a representation of the experience of so many families who lost sons during the Great War. [10]
My Boy Jack begins comically, with 15-year-old Jack Kipling trying on a pair of pince-nez. He is unable to see well without correction, but his father, Rudyard Kipling, wants him to wear the pince-nez to take his vision exam; it will make Jack's vision troubles look less serious. Jack fails the test, however; he cannot read the eye chart, without the pince-nez, from farther away than about a metre.
Jack, at home again, talks with Elsie, his sister. He explains that he wants to leave in order to get away from "this house and everything", and Elsie becomes angry with Jack — not because he wants to leave her, but because he could be killed at war. Kipling comes into the room, and Elsie hides behind a chair. Kipling then tells Jack that he will get Jack into the army, somehow. After Kipling leaves, Elsie emerges, furious.
The act ends with Jack leading his men into battle. In the theatre, there is then an interval.
This part of My Boy Jack deals with the Kipling family receiving the news of Jack being declared Missing In Action. During an argument with Carrie, Kipling reveals his guilt and responsibility helping Jack enlist in the army. Elsie reveals that Jack went to war, not out of patriotism, but to get away from his family, particularly to escape the shadow of Kipling's fame.
There is then a flashback to a time when Jack was only seven, showing Jack and Elsie with their father.
It is now 1924, and Elsie is marrying George Bambridge. Her parents, though still missing Jack, are beginning to move on; they are happy for Elsie. Kipling has been interviewing soldiers from Jack's regiment of Irish Guards. One of them who served under Jack recalls his last moments. Jack had been leading a charge against the German trenches, continuing the attack while the other soldiers dropped off in fear. Jack was killed by machine gun fire just as he reached enemy lines. Kipling received some bittersweet solace in knowing that his son died heroically.
The play then jumps forward nine years, to 1933. It has been twenty years since My Boy Jack first began, in 1913. There are rumours of war, again, and Kipling wonders why the Great War was even fought. What was the point of his son's death, if there will just be another war?
My Boy Jack ends with Kipling reciting his poem, My Boy Jack . [11]
Character | British Touring Cast |
---|---|
Rudyard Kipling | David Haig |
Caroline "Carrie" Kipling | Belinda Lang |
Elsie "Bird" Kipling | Rosanna Lavelle |
John "Jack" Kipling | Ben Silverstone |
Guardsman Bowe | Simon Wolfe |
Major Sparks | Chris Moran |
Mr Frankland | Fred Ridgeway |
Young Jack | Changed depending on area |
Young Elsie | Changed depending on area |
Joseph Rudyard Kipling was an English novelist, short-story writer, poet, and journalist. He was born in British India, which inspired much of his work.
This is a bibliography of works by Rudyard Kipling, including books, short stories, poems, and collections of his works.
Captains Courageous: A Story of the Grand Banks is an 1897 novel by Rudyard Kipling that follows the adventures of fifteen-year-old Harvey Cheyne Jr., the spoiled son of a railroad tycoon, after he is saved from drowning by a Portuguese fisherman in the north Atlantic. The novel originally appeared as a serialisation in McClure's, beginning with the November 1896 edition with the last instalment appearing in May 1897. In that year it was then published in its entirety as a novel, first in the United States by Doubleday, and a month later in the United Kingdom by Macmillan. It is Kipling's only novel set entirely in North America. In 1900, Teddy Roosevelt extolled the book in his essay "What We Can Expect of the American Boy," praising Kipling for describing "in the liveliest way just what a boy should be and do."
Kim is a novel by Nobel Prize-winning English author Rudyard Kipling. It was first published serially in McClure's Magazine from December 1900 to October 1901 as well as in Cassell's Magazine from January to November 1901, and first published in book form by Macmillan & Co. Ltd in October 1901. The story unfolds against the backdrop of the Great Game, the political conflict between Russia and Britain in Central Asia. The novel popularized the phrase and idea of the Great Game.
Frederick Winston Furneaux Smith, 2nd Earl of Birkenhead was a British biographer and Member of the House of Lords. He is best known for writing a biography of Rudyard Kipling that was suppressed by the Kipling family for many years, and which he never lived to see in print.
David Haig Collum Ward is an English actor and playwright. He has appeared in West End productions and numerous television and film roles over a career spanning four decades.
Burwash, archaically known as Burghersh, is a rural village and civil parish in the Rother district of East Sussex, England. Situated in the High Weald of Sussex some 15 miles (24 km) inland from the port of Hastings, it is located five miles (8 km) south-west of Hurst Green, on the A265 road, and on the River Dudwell, a tributary of the River Rother. In an area steeped in history, some nine miles (14 km) to the south-east lies Battle Abbey and eight miles (13 km) to the east is Bodiam Castle.
"The Absent-Minded Beggar" is an 1899 poem by Rudyard Kipling, set to music by Sir Arthur Sullivan and often accompanied by an illustration of a wounded but defiant British soldier, "A Gentleman in Kharki", by Richard Caton Woodville. The song was written as part of an appeal by the Daily Mail to raise money for soldiers fighting in the Second Boer War and their families. The fund was the first such charitable effort for a war.
"My Boy Jack" is a 1916 poem by Rudyard Kipling. Kipling wrote it for Jack Cornwell, the 16 year old youngest recipient of the Victoria Cross who stayed by his post on board the light cruiser HMS Chester at the Battle of Jutland until he died. Kipling's son John was never referred to as "Jack". The poem echoes the grief of all parents who lost sons in the First World War. John Kipling was a 2nd Lt in the Irish Guards and disappeared in September 1915 during the Battle of Loos in the First World War. The poem was published as a prelude to a story in his book Sea Warfare written about the Battle of Jutland in 1916. The imagery and theme is maritime in nature and as such it is about a generic nautical Jack, though emotionally affected by the death of Kipling's son.
Burgh House is a historic house located on New End Square in Hampstead, London, that includes the Hampstead Museum. The house is also listed as Burgh House & Hampstead Museum.
My Boy Jack can refer to:
William Samuel Bambridge was a school-teacher who accompanied George Augustus Selwyn and William Charles Cotton in the Te Waimate mission, New Zealand, before returning to England where he became photographer to Queen Victoria. Three of his sons became England international footballers.
The Fringes of the Fleet is a booklet written in 1915 by Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936). The booklet contains essays and poems about nautical subjects in World War I.
My Boy Jack is a 2007 British biographical television film based on David Haig's 1997 play of the same name for ITV. It was filmed in August 2007, with Haig as Rudyard Kipling and Daniel Radcliffe as John Kipling. The American television premiere was on 20 April 2008 on PBS, with primetime rebroadcast on 27 March 2011. The film attracted about 5.7 million viewers on its original ITV broadcast in the UK on Remembrance Day, 11 November 2007.
George Louis St Clair Bambridge was a British diplomat. His wife, Elsie, was the daughter of the author Rudyard Kipling.
"The King's Pilgrimage" is a poem and book about the journey made by King George V in May 1922 to visit the World War I cemeteries and memorials being constructed at the time in France and Belgium by the Imperial War Graves Commission. This journey was part of the wider pilgrimage movement that saw tens of thousands of bereaved relatives from the United Kingdom and the Empire visit the battlefields of the Great War in the years that followed the Armistice. The poem was written by the British author and poet Rudyard Kipling, while the text in the book is attributed to the Australian journalist and author Frank Fox. Aspects of the pilgrimage were also described by Kipling within the short story "The Debt" (1930).
Toomai of the Elephants is a short story by Rudyard Kipling about a young elephant-handler. It was first published in the December 1893 issue of St. Nicholas magazine and reprinted in the collection of Kipling short stories, The Jungle Book (1894). The character Petersen Sahib is thought to be modelled on India-born English naturalist George P. Sanderson (1848–1892).
"On the Road to Mandalay" is a song by Oley Speaks (1874–1948) with text by Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936).
John Kipling was the only son of British author Rudyard Kipling. In the First World War, his father used his influence to get him a commission in the British Army despite being decisively rejected for poor eyesight. His death at the Battle of Loos caused his family immense grief.
"In the Neolithic Age" is a poem by the English writer Rudyard Kipling. It was published in the December 1892 issue of The Idler and in 1896 in his poetry collection The Seven Seas. The poem is the source of the quotation: "There are nine and sixty ways of constructing tribal lays, / And every single one of them is right."