Dear Mister Kaiser

At the height of the First World War, British Prisoner of War Robert Campbell received devastating news from his family. At a loss for what to do, he wrote directly to Kaiser Wilhelm II, who allowed him two weeks’ leave from his prison camp to return home to Blighty.

Unlikely as it sounds, this is a true story, and one that Hour Lot Theatre have latched onto as they jump aboard the First World War centenary bandwagon. But, as the company repeatedly remind us, they are not historians. As such, they take considerable liberties with the truth, turning it instead into the comic tale of a letter of complaint spiralling out of control. The Very British Problems approach to World War I commemoration.

No one would suggest, after Blackadder Goes Forth, that it’s impossible to make jokes about the First World War. The best of this comedy, however, maintains the bitter taste of the conflict’s horror as an aftertaste to its laughter. No such bitterness in Dear Mister Kaiser. Instead, we get cartoonish national stereotypes—“I’m always logical, I’m German”—and uncomplicated gestures of friendship tossed across No-Man’s Land.

What’s worse, Hour Lot Theatre are problematically reductive in their presentation of the Great War. In its tribute to stiff upper lips and gentlemen’s honour, Dear Mister Kaiser comes dangerously close to celebrating one brief glimmer of empathy at the expense of an entire world war’s worth of devastation. One fleetingly redemptive chapter does not rewrite the whole story.