The Dark Earth and the Light Sky

by Nick Dear

Deep in the Hampshire countryside Edward Thomas, disaffected husband, exhausted father and tormented writer, scrapes a living. In 1913 he meets American poet Robert Frost and everything changes. As their friendship blossoms Edward writes, emerging from his cocoon of self-doubt into one of the most influential poets of the twentieth century. But he makes the drastic decision to enlist, confounding his friends and family. The Dark Earth and the Light Sky , which premiered at the Almeida Theatre, London, in November 2012, delves into the life of this enigmatic and complex character in an era of change and destruction.

Genres: Plays, Drama

96 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 2012

About the author

Nick Dear is a British playwright and screenwriter. His best-known plays include The Art of Success and Frankenstein; among his many screenplays are Persuasion and Agatha Christie's Poirot. He lives in London, England.

Reviews

[Bettie]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08lfbh5

Description: A moving account of the years leading up to the death of the poet Edward Thomas. Nick Dear's play explores Thomas' relationships with the American poet Robert Frost, who became his mentor and close friend, and British author and poet Eleanor Farjeon, with whom he shared a mutual adoration.

We also journey into his somewhat uneasy marriage with Helen Thomas who suffered at the hands of both these relationships as well as having to suffer the affects of Thomas' regular bouts of grim depression.

We eventually discover that Thomas' great passion for nature and the countryside was the real reason for him signing up to go to War - his overwhelming need to protect The Dark Earth and The Light Sky.

Edward Thomas James D'Arcy
Robert Frost Robert Evans
Helen Thomas Charlotte Emmerson
Eleanor Farjeon Sylvestra Le Touzel
Philip Thomas Alan Davis
Bott Nicholas Boulton
Major Lushington Nicholas Boulton



Listen: 'In Pursuit of Edward Thomas' (30mins)

Description: The poet Edward Thomas died at the Battle of Arras one hundred years ago on 9th April 1917. He'd been a poet for little more than two years and his collected works amount to only a slim volume. Nevertheless he is regarded as among the greatest of English poets. What made him so? Poet and editor, Matthew Hollis, follows a journey Thomas made by bike in the spring of 1913 from London into south west England. It was a journey that produced a prose book for Thomas, In Pursuit of Spring, but it was also a journey that turned him towards poetry. Producer: Tim Dee.

[Laura]

From BBC Radio 4 - Drama:
A moving account of the years leading up to the death of the poet Edward Thomas. Nick Dear's play explores Thomas' relationships with the American poet Robert Frost, who became his mentor and close friend, and British author and poet Eleanor Farjeon, with whom he shared a mutual adoration.

We also journey into his somewhat uneasy marriage with Helen Thomas who suffered at the hands of both these relationships as well as having to suffer the affects of Thomas' regular bouts of grim depression.

We eventually discover that Thomas' great passion for nature and the countryside was the real reason for him signing up to go to War - his overwhelming need to protect The Dark Earth and The Light Sky.

Originally produced by the Almeida Theatre Company

Directed by Celia de Wolff
A Pier production for BBC Radio 4.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08lfbh5

[Steph De Mel]

I picked this play up because, having read Edward Thomas’ “Selected Poems” and Jean Moorcroft Wilson’s excellent biography of the poet recently, I’ve become something of a Thomas fangirl.

While Dear’s portrayal of Thomas is not flattering, his portrait of the Thomas’ fraught family life is nuanced and compelling. Nevertheless, I was most interested in this play for its treatment of the friendship between Edward Thomas and Robert Frost, and unfortunately, I found this aspect a little disappointing, as it’s not quite as richly characterised as I would have liked. Even so, I’m glad to have read it, and I wish I had seen it performed when the play opened in London some years ago.

[Darren Moore]

A beautiful beautiful play about the life and death of Edward Thomas and his relationships with those he loved and those who loved him.