Christmas Eve 1914
An Audible Original
By: Charles Olivier / Narrated By: Full Cast
Length: 1 hr and 13 mins
A truly good audio drama
Quick! If you’re an Audible member and don’t already have it, Christmas Eve 1914 is one of the freebies offered for the month of December 1918—you get two, so might I suggest you choose this as one of them?
I generally have a hard time with audio dramas/dramatizations as there’s usually so much background noise going on that it’s hard to follow, and there is usually a dearth of spoken cues that make it difficult to tell who’s doing what, or what facial expressions might be (the last dramatization I listened to was Emma adapted from Jane Austen, and it was a train wreck). Not so with Christmas Eve 1914, and that’s saying a whole heckuva lot as the background noise is a World War, for cripes sake! It was truly easy to hear what each character was saying, and the narrators, from this entire full cast, added grunts, groans, panting from exertion just as the story demanded it, so bravo! Much appreciated! The cast did a stellar job all around, and though I couldn’t see the characters, and their voices weren’t wildly different from each other, there was still enough to differentiate between all of them.
The story starts on December 23, 1914 when a rudderless group of British soldiers is given a heads up that there’s to be a major offensive on Christmas day. It’s a run-in with suicide, and nobody’s happy about it, but the acting CO, Lieutenant Swinburne, is nothing if not a stickler for rules, and he’s mighty devoted to doing whatever it takes to ensure that his command becomes permanent. Then too, the guy takes everything quite seriously, and makes sure everyone knuckles under his mighty will.
Enter Harold Beecher, an incredibly young and innocent 17-year old who is sent to the group and who is as green as they come. Swinburne’s introduction to him is of him singing a Christmas carol to show the lads that no really: His singing voice hasn’t changed with age yet. He’s as young as they come, and it rankles Swinburne, who sends him on a dangerous mission.
With disastrous and tragic consequences.
But perhaps his death has meaning. Perhaps his small, defenseless body touches the hearts of German soldiers as a 1-hour cease fire is navigated. Perhaps his quiet dignity, his devotion to the men, his willingness to undertake the impossible with nary a quibble, really touches Swinburne at some level.
And perhaps Swinburne is changed forever.
Christmas Eve 1914 is a fine production and it combines two of my favorite things: Christmas and military history (as it’s based on true events). There’s drama; there’s sensitivity; there’s even a touch of humor.
If you have the chance to pick it up, you can’t go wrong. …I just wonder what the heck the song after the end credits/acknowledgements was all about, though… QUITE odd!
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