Feature

A fascinating and emotive evening awaits in Northampton next week when John Nichol retraces the Unknown Warrior’s journey home from the battlefields of Northern France to Westminster Abbey.

Nichol hit the headlines in 1991 when his aeroplane was shot down during the Gulf War, and he and his pilot John Peters were taken captive, tortured, and paraded on television.

Since that fateful moment, Nichol has established himself as a bestselling author with 17 books to his name.

Nichol’s new theatre show will see him take an emotional and personal journey. During the First World War, more than a million solders from the then British Empire lost their lives. Over a century later, around half of them still have no known grave.

The scale of the fighting, the destructive power of high explosive, and the combination of relentless military engagement and thick mud meant that many of the dead were never recovered or identified.

In the aftermath of the conflict, an idea was born for a single ‘Unknown Warrior’ to commemorate every single one of the missing and help staunch the flow of national grief. Each phase of the Unknown Warrior’s burial ceremony was choreographed with military precision, love and respect. The grand state occasion culminated with a funeral at Westminster Abbey on Armistice Day, November 11, 1920. Following the service, an estimated 1,250,000 people visited the abbey to see the grave in the week following the funeral.

To help shine light on the 100-year-old story, Nichol retraces the Unknown Warrior’s journey home through conversations with relatives of those involved, research from long-forgotten archives and the insights of modern experts. Speaking to those who have recently lost loved ones in more modern conflicts, he explores upon our continuing need for a tangible resting place at which to grieve the fallen. And as Remembrance Sunday approaches, he explores the way individuals and nations mark the sacrifice of the dead across the ages.

The story and history of The Unknown Warrior will be brought to life with haunting visuals and a stirring soundscape.

John Nichol: The Unknown Warrior comes to the Royal & Derngate on Monday November 4. The show starts at 7.30pm. Tickets cost from £29.50. Visit royalandderngate.co.uk or call 01604 624811 to book.