4.2.1.4 Oh! What a Lovely War by Joan Littlewood Quiz: AQA English Literature A, Unit 2

The 20 questions

1. Oh! What a Lovely War was devised by which theatre company, directed by Joan Littlewood?

   • Theatre Workshop, based at Stratford East
   • the Old Vic Company, based in south London
   • the National Theatre, based on the South Bank
   • the Royal Shakespeare Company, based in Stratford

2. Which theatrical form frames the satire in Oh! What a Lovely War?

   • a Greek tragic chorus speaking in formal verse
   • a Jacobean revenge tragedy with a ghost
   • a seaside pierrot concert party with music hall songs
   • a Victorian melodrama in five acts with a villain

3. What kind of songs does the production use to create its ironic effect?

   • folk songs about the sea and the fishing villages
   • operatic arias about heroic battles and the glory of war
   • funeral hymns sung at the graveside of each soldier
   • popular First World War songs that clash with the reality of the front

4. Which technique does the production use to present the scale of the war?

   • a fairy-tale narrator who addresses the children in the audience
   • a single tragic hero who dominates every scene
   • a long silent monologue by a single soldier
   • projected statistics and facts about casualties and expenditure

5. Which group does the production satirise most directly?

   • the nurses who cared for the wounded at the front
   • the schoolchildren who collected money for the troops
   • the working-class labourers who built the factories
   • the generals and politicians who directed the war

6. What is the effect of the performance's shifts between comedy and horror?

   • it unsettles the audience and exposes the gap between jollity and slaughter
   • it makes the audience laugh without thinking about the war
   • it removes all tension from the production as a whole
   • it replaces the war with a comedy that has no link to it

7. Which statement best describes the play's relationship with official history?

   • it ignores the history of the war entirely in its scenes
   • it challenges the official narrative of the war through satire and dissent
   • it celebrates the commanders and their decisions throughout
   • it repeats official history without any comment or question

8. Which aspect of the performance uses direct address to the audience?

   • the audience is silenced for the whole performance
   • the stage is removed so that the actors are hidden
   • the actors wear masks at all times in every scene
   • performers speak directly to the audience and invite reflection

9. Which film version of the play was made in 1969?

   • Peter Jackson's They Shall Not Grow Old with its archive footage
   • Sam Mendes's 1917 about a message in the trenches
   • Richard Attenborough's Oh! What a Lovely War
   • Stanley Kubrick's Paths of Glory about the French army

10. What is the significance of the production's use of the Somme?

    • it is presented as an example of waste caused by poor leadership
    • it is treated as a comic episode with no real casualties
    • it is portrayed as a decisive victory that ended the war
    • it is ignored entirely in favour of other battles

11. Which question is most useful when evaluating the play as political drama?

    • How many seats does the theatre have in its main auditorium?
    • Is the programme printed on coloured paper or on white paper?
    • Is the theatre painted in a bright shade of blue?
    • Does the satire of leaders and rhetoric make a clear argument about the war's conduct?

12. Which element of the staging suggests the detachment of those who sent men to war?

    • the generals are killed in the very first scene of the play
    • generals and politicians are shown at a safe distance from the fighting
    • generals stand in the trenches alongside the ordinary men
    • the generals are absent from the stage in every scene

13. What role does the pierrot figure play in the production?

    • a narrator-like figure who guides the audience through the satire
    • a character who dies in every scene of the play
    • a government official who censors the performance
    • a German spy who passes secrets to the enemy

14. The use of music hall in the production is best described as:

    • a way to connect the war to popular culture and the audience's experience
    • an attempt to recreate Edwardian theatre exactly as it was
    • a comic detour with no connection to the war at all
    • a means of removing all political content from the show

15. Which statement describes the production's view of heroism?

    • it celebrates heroic commanders in its final scenes
    • it presents heroism as the only truth about the war
    • it avoids the subject of heroism entirely in the script
    • it questions heroic myths by showing the futility and waste of war

16. Why is the production's form significant for a modern audience?

    • it is a religious ceremony performed in the theatre
    • it is a purely historical reconstruction with no modern link
    • it removes the emotional impact of the events it describes
    • it shows how theatre can use popular forms to challenge official memory

17. Which theme is most closely associated with the production's use of statistics?

    • the growth of the British economy during the war
    • the dehumanising scale of the war's losses
    • the success of the armies' logistics on the front
    • the cost of building a new railway across the country

18. Which statement best describes the production's tone at its conclusion?

    • bitter and reflective, leaving the audience with a sense of loss
    • neutral and uninterested in the fate of the characters
    • celebratory and triumphant in its final song and dance
    • comic and carefree until the very last moment

19. What does the production suggest about the relationship between entertainment and war?

    • war is always entertaining to those who watch it
    • entertainment is banned in wartime and never performed
    • popular entertainment can sustain support for war, which the play exposes
    • entertainment has no connection to war in any way

20. Which element of the production makes its political argument immediate?

    • a focus on a single individual's private life throughout
    • direct address and contemporary satire aimed at the 1963 audience
    • strict historical accuracy to the last detail of the event
    • exclusive use of silent mime with no spoken words

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