WAR is very much in most people’s thoughts this year with many events around the country commemorating the centenary of the start of the First World War or The Great War as it was labelled.

This weekend a unique and memorable show will be on stage at Malvern’s Festival Theatre reflecting on how war affects the lives of nations.

Produced in association with the Imperial War Museum, The Pity of War will be narrated by veteran actor Timothy West, when this evening of reading and music on Sunday, October 19, draws on the poems and letters of World War One soldier Wilfred Owen.

Written in 1917 and ’18, Owen’s poems and letters reveal his courage and humanity as he endured experiences and conditions from which many of his fellow soldiers were never fully able to recover.

With a career spanning over four decades on both stage and screen, Timothy West has established himself as one of Britain's most versatile and dependable actors. He will be accompanied on stage by internationally renowned musicians, pianist Martin Roscoe and violinist Matthew Trusler, who will perform sonatas by Debussy, Elgar and Janáček, all written during the Great War.

The readings and live music are interspersed with original recordings of wartime music hall songs, familiar to every soldier on the Western Front.

It promises to be not only a unique show, but emotional and memorable.