Bomb Happy - Harrogate Library & Information Centre

Experience the breath-taking real-life stories of two Yorkshire Normandy Veterans

From D-Day to VE Day, this powerful one hour double bill of live performance (30 minutes) and short film (30 minutes) evocatively brings to life the verbatim accounts of two working class Yorkshire Normandy Veterans, highlighting the lifelong impact of PTSD and sleep trauma, not only on veterans of war but on their families.

“We’re in the water, wading to the shore, and we’re literally brushing against what looks like logs, and they’re just bodies rolling in the surf, people that we know, eighteen, nineteen, twenty year olds, they’re people that we know!” Smudger from Bomb Happy: Smudger’s Story.

“I had to try to very carefully wake him up, but very carefully you know. You see, he’d be shaking, and for a moment when he woke he’d still be back there - in the war.” Gloria, Smudger’s wife from Bomb Happy: Smudger’s Story.

“Bomb Happy is a slang phrase we use for being under fire for many days at a time... it does describe the condition you become.” Smudger from Bomb Happy, Smudger’s Story.

★★★★★ ‘A powerful sense of immediacy & involvement’ - Broadway Baby

★★★★★ ‘A must-see play that will stay with you forever’ - World at War

★★★★ ‘Verbatim Theatre at its best’ - Edfringe Review

★★★★ ‘An almost unique piece that transcends theatre’ - The Wee Review