THE Original Theatre Company is remounting last year’s tour of Birdsong to mark the 100th anniversary of the outbreak of the First World War, adding even more poignancy to the play.

“There was something about approaching the rehearsals this year, being aware of the timing, though I was also very proud of the 2013 show,” says director Alastair Whatley, whose latest production arrives at York Theatre Royal on Monday.

“The anniversary adds this extra element as it’s in the forefront of people’s minds. It’s in the papers a lot more. Ninety nine years, 100 years, what’s the difference, but I think it does matter because there is a lot of debate and argument going on about it as it was a war with so many facets.

“This 100-year gap has affected our reaction to it exponentially but suddenly the First World War is news again rather than history.”

Rachel Wagstaff’s stage adaptation of Sebastian Faulks’s two million-selling novel Birdsong is but one of many plays, poems, books, films or paintings that have reflected on war in the 20th century. “Though the Second World War had unfathomably unimaginable deaths, there’s something about the First World War that impacts upon us and captures the imagination,” says Alastair. “Now people are rediscovering it, as Sebastian has said.

“People who fought in the war and survived it didn’t talk about it, but the war was a meeting of the old world and the new: it was the battering ram that prodded us into the new world: the new era of the Titanic and women’s liberation and shadowed by the first day of the Battle of the Somme.”

Birdsong opens in pre-war France, where a young Englishman, Stephen Wraysford, embarks on a passionate and dangerous affair with the beautiful Isabelle Azaire that turns their worlds upside down. As the war breaks out, Stephen must lead his men through the carnage of the Somme, clinging to the memory of Isabelle and the idyll of his former life.

Stephen is played on the 2014 tour by George Banks in his debut in the role. “Obviously it’s a well-loved book, and Rachel has done an incredible job in her adaptation,” he says. “Stephen comes across as a very emotionally complex character with a tough childhood, who’s a great challenge to play.”

George recalls how Sebastian Faulks had asked Rachel “why try to make a sculpture out of a painting?” when she wanted to do an adaptation because he had poured a lifetime into his work. “But he’s developed a good relationship with Rachel, and so there a bits that are different from the book,” he says. “First of all it has to be a piece of theatre as it wouldn’t work if you just did it as a replica of the book.”

Staging Birdsong keeps the story of the First World War alive, suggests George. “It tells it in an interesting way. A lot of people have a rough idea of the Great War but through the book and the play, you learn of the human element and how damaging the war was,” he says.

“If we give an insight into the worst of humanity and how people pulled through it, it raises question about our humanity and who we are. It was a war of mass slaughter with no human face that raised the big question of why we chose to do what we did to each other.”

War draws different things out of different people: the worst of some, the best of others, says George. “Although Stephen is the most damaged, he had embarked on a relationship in France before the war, so when he’s damaged, he has to go on a journey to find out who he really is.”

Stephen Wraysford is burning his way into George’s soul. “There are always parts that you play that will be special to you and change you as a person; Stephen is one of those,” he says. “He is so full of love and then is damaged by war; what we’re saying is that Birdsong is a love story, not only of Stephen and Isabelle, but also of the soldiers in the trenches because they loved each other.

“Hopefully, this play will open people’s minds to what people went through and it will give them a better understanding of the human condition.”

The Original Theatre Company and Birdsong Productions present Birdsong, at York Theatre Royal, Monday to Saturday, 7.30pm plus 2pm, Thursday and 2.30pm, Saturday. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk

Also Hull New Theatre, May 19 to 24; 01482 300300.