This Wretched Splendour/Wild with All Regrets

by Rebecca Wilby

This Wretched Splendour is a full-length stage play in two acts. Seven bored and demoralised survivors in a Flanders trench in 1916 find their lives transformed by the arrival of a new officer, David Cartwright. With his bright charisma and subversive approach to authority he inspires them to face their seemingly inevitable fate with courage, high-spirited stoicism and a sanguine sense of humour - the only defence against a bleak and mindless war.

This new edition of This Wretched Splendour includes a one-act play, Wild With All Regrets, an evocative biographical drama woven from the words and experiences of Wilfred Owen on the Western Front.

"The standard first world war play is still RC Sherriff's Journey's End. But Rebecca Wilby, a 29-year-old from Cheltenham, knocks it into a cocked hat with This Wretched Splendour. Where Sherriff's play is steeped in the public-school ethos, this one conveys the eccentric humanity and the tragedy of life at the front line." Michael Billington, The Guardian

108 pages, Paperback

First published August 29, 2014

About the author

Rebecca Wilby is a novelist and playwright from Cheltenham, England. She is the author of This Wretched Splendour, a play performed in Cheltenham and London, and In Different Skies, a novel about the First World War. She is also the daughter of esoteric author, Gareth Knight, and co-authored The Abbey Papers (Skylight new edition) with him. She also provides an postscript essay for Margaret Lumley Brown's novel, Both Sides of the Door.

Also known as the psych folk musician, Rebsie Fairholm, she has released two albums, Mind the Gap and Seven Star Green (both Sonic Spongecake Records/Flowforth Productions). She also released a CD called RUINS with fellow author and musician, Daniel Staniforth, which features the poetry of Margaret Randall. The pair also compose and record under the moniker 'Alchymical Muse' and recently provided music for the Cheltenham Playhouse production of Dylan Thomas's Under Milk Wood.