Overview

'Now. Tonight. Before we're sent back to the front. Take every bit of money you got. Ditch everything else.'

July 1916. Albert Ingham and Alfred Longshaw are crouched in a muddy, rat-infested trench in France. These sharp and funny young soldiers from a battalion of the Manchester Pals are about to take part in one of the most savage assaults in the history of human warfare, The Battle of the Somme.

Mark Hayhurst's gripping play exposes the impact of the First World War on soldiers and their families. First Light received its world premiere at Chichester's Minerva Theatre on 10 June 2016.