IN A year in which the nation is marking 100 years since the Armistice in the First World War, a new play will show the Great War from a different perspective.

Although the Armistice agreement was signed and agreed at 5am on November 11, 1918, the ceasefire actually took place at 11am to allow notice to be delivered to all fronts.

However, in that six-hour period, soldiers on the battlefields were still fighting and were none the wiser of what was going on.

In that time, more than 2,700 soldiers from around the world were killed, even though the war was technically over.

A new play by the Rumpus Theatre Company is looking into this small window of time and what it was like for those soldiers on the frontline and those at home waiting to hear from their loved ones.

Written by John Goodrum, The Eleventh Hour focuses on a family at home celebrating the end of the war, and soldiers in the field on one final mission.

Goodrum said: “We were asked to produce something around the century of the Armistice and we looked around a lot of the plays around which focused on the end of the year.

“I rather arrogantly said that I would make one that was specially linked to the Armistice for the 100 years celebrations."

With many plays and films dramatising the war, Goodrum wanted to show the ordinariness of what some of these people were going through during the war.

“Some of life was just very ordinary at home, “ added Goodrum.

“We see people chatting over the kitchen table with not a lot going on as it is something that people may not think about; what the family unit was doing during the war.”

Even though Goodrum’s characters are fictitious, everything that is put in to the story is based on fact, with the director and his crew diving deep into the archives to find the story they wanted to tell.

He added: “I played around theatrically with the timescale, but all the things about life in the trenches and what life was like at home it was interesting to learn about what life was actually like that.

“What was interesting was going through the archives to see how things were reported.

“Of course there were reports from the war but there was this odd ordinariness to everything.

“For example in the papers as well as war time coverage there was show reviews from London and gardening tips.”

The Eleventh Hour follows Harry Furber and his friend Charlie Juster who are sent on one last mission into No Man’s Land.

All the while his mother and father, wife Emmie and young son Billy are celebrating news of the end of the war back home in England.

Goodrum hopes that the audience to this show will laugh, cry, but most importantly come away having learnt a little bit more about the First World War.

He added: “I think its a great way for us to end this year long celebrations of a century since the signing on the Armistice.”

The Eleventh Hour will be performed at The Haymarket from November 28 to December 1.

For more information and tickets visit anvilarts.org.uk/11th-Hour.