NLP presents JOHN NICHOL - THE UNKNOWN WARRIOR
SATURDAY 2 NOVEMBER 7.30pm (THEATRE)
Tickets and information 01202 280000
John Nichol, the former RAF Tornado Navigator, and Sunday Times best-selling author, includes a date at Lighthouse Poole on Saturday 2 November as part of his first ever theatre tour.
Based on his forthcoming new book, The Unknown Warrior – A Personal Journey of Discovery and Remembrance, (published by Simon & Schuster on Thursday 26 September), the tour continues towards the lead up to Remembrance Sunday on 10 November.
The theatre tour, which will be a remarkable, fascinating, and highly emotive experience, and a must for fans of 20th century and military history, will see John Nichol take an emotional and personal journey, retracing the Unknown Warrior’s journey home from the battlefields of Northern France to Westminster Abbey to be buried “among the Kings.”
The grand State occasion culminated with a funeral at Westminster Abbey on Armistice Day, 11 November 1920 and in the week following the service an estimated 1,250,000 people visited the Abbey to see the grave.
The story and history of the Unknown Warrior will be brought to life with haunting visuals, and a rousing soundscape as audiences are taken back to that intense period of public sorrow and reflection. During the First World War, more than 9.7 million military personnel and about 10 million civilians were killed, including more than a million solders from the then British Empire. Over a century later, around half of them still have no known grave.
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 tidal flow of national grief. Each phase of his central London burial ceremony was choreographed with military precision, love, and respect.
So how did the plan take shape? Who was this unknown man? How was he chosen, and from where? What were the logistical challenges of repatriating a single body, whilst retaining its total anonymity?
To help shine a light on the 100-year-old story, John 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. In speaking to those who have recently lost loved ones in more modern conflicts, he meditates upon our continuing need for a tangible resting place at which to truly grieve the fallen.
And, as Remembrance Sunday approaches, he explores the way individuals and nations mark the sacrifice of the dead across the ages.
Drawing on Nichol’s own experience of combat and the death of colleagues, The Unknown Warrior is above all a search for the true meaning of camaraderie, sacrifice, and remembrance.
John Nichol hit the headlines in 1991 when his plane was shot down during the Iraq War and he and his pilot John Peters were taken captive, tortured, and paraded on TV. Since that fateful moment, John has established himself as a best-selling author with 17 books to his credit, including Tornado Down, written with Peters, which described their ordeal as prisoners of war.