Drawing: Ben Barnes and Genevieve O’Reilly in Birdsong

Birdsong

The first public performance of Sebastian Faulk’s BIRDSONG was on the 18 September 2010 at London’s Comedy Theatre. Directed by Sir Trevor Nunn, the WWI love story featured Ben Barnes and Genevieve O’Reilly, who I drew on the day and meet at the stage door  where they graphed it, commemorating the World Premiere.

Drawing: Genevieve O’Reilly in Birdsong

gen o'reilly

Irish-Australian actress Genevieve O’Reilly played the love interest opposite Ben Barnes in Trevor Nunn‘s stage version of Sebastian Faulk’s harrowing WWI novel Birdsong at London’s Comedy Theatre at the end of 2010

It follows the fortunes of Stephen Wraysford who is sent to Northern France to stay with a factory owner and has an affair with the owner’s wife Isabelle. Six years later he returns to fight in the trenches in the same fields where he fell in love.

In an Evening Standard interview Ben commented on the ‘velvety texture’ to Genevieve’s voice, which is Irish overlaid with a hint of Adelaide, where she grew up from the age of ten.

She had worked with Trevor before on the acclaimed 2005 production of Richard II playing the Queen to Kevin Spacey‘s Richard. Film Fans will probably best remember he as Dash MacKenzie in Avatar or Mon Mothma in Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith.

Drawing: Ben Barnes in Birdsong

Ben Barnes001

Sebastien Faulk’s 1993 war novel Birdsong was adapted for the stage with its World Premiere at the Comedy Theatre in London from September 2010 to January 2011. Directed by Trevor Nunn, it starred Ben Barnes as Stephen Wraysford, a soldier in France during the First World War.