IN 2006, three years after Michael Morpurgo's First World War novel Private Peaceful was published, 306 men shot at dawn for cowardice or desertion were granted posthumous pardons.

Mr Morpurgo's story of a young soldier, not yet 18, recalling his childhood memories while awaiting his fate on the Western Front, continues to be told on stage in a poignant yet uplifting one-man play adapted from the novel by Simon Reade. The latest production finds George Stagnell playing Private Tommo Peaceful – and everyone he meets in his life – in Pick Me Up Theatre's production at 41 Monkgate, York, until Saturday.

"I think for the last eight or nine years, there's always been a production at one place or another going on, which has been very pleasing," said Mr Morpurgo. "It's largely been done very well by young actors and I'm full of admiration for their performances as this one-man format works really well to give it intensity.

"There are differences between the book and the play: when Simon approached me about doing it as a one-man show and said that he'd be using a new ending, I agreed that he had no alternative but to change the ending to fit the format."

Within three months of Mr Morpurgo's novel being published, Reade had written his adaptation; within another three it was on stage. "People didn't know the book at the time, but now it has become a familiar book in schools," said Mr Morpurgo.

Summing up his story, he said: "It's as much about growing up in the depths of rural England as it is about being at the Front in the trenches. It's a story of two brothers, as told by the younger brother, Tommo, as he goes through the night knowing something terrible is going to happen in the morning. He tells his life story, growing up with his brother Charlie, falling in love with the same girl, going to the Front."

Mr Morpurgo's inspiration for Private Peaceful came from a visit to the war museum In Flanders Fields at Ypres, where he was intrigued by a typed letter framed on a wall. The letter was from an army captain to a soldier's mother, informing her in a few short lines that her son had been shot at dawn for cowardice.

"I later read that some court martial trials for cowardice were only 20 minutes long and I thought to myself, 'this is not justice; this is something else going on'. Around 30 to 40 per cent of those who were shot had already had hospital treatment for what we know now as post-traumatic stress disorder and were still out of their heads from what had gone on before."

Pick Me Up Theatre presents Private Peaceful at the John Cooper Studio Theatre, 41 Monkgate, York, tonight and tomorrow at 7.30pm, Saturday at 2.30pm and 7.30pm. Box office: 01904 623568 or at pickmeuptheatre.com