Birdsong (play) Birdsong (play) Birdsong was a 2010 adaptation of the novel of the same title by Sebastian Faulks. The text was written by Rachel Wagstaff and the premiere production was directed by Trevor Nunn. That production began previews at the Comedy Theatre in London on September 18, 2010, and opened on September 28, 2010. The West End stage production's cast included Ben Barnes as Stephen Wraysford, Genevieve O'Reilly as Isabelle, Nicholas Farrell as René Azaire, Iain Mitchell as Bérard, Lee Ross as Jack Firebrace and Zoe Waites as Jeanne. Other cast members included Owain Arthur, Billy Carter, Florence Hall, Paul Hawkyard,
Birdsong (novel) omniscient narrator who occasionally describes the events from a broad perspective, the novel tends to shadow a handful of characters closely, principally Stephen Wraysford, Isaebelle Azair, Micheal Weir, Jack Firebrace and Elizabeth Benson. Pat Wheeler, a scholar of literature, describes the narrative style as "both naturalistic and realistic and very much in the manner of the nineteenth century writers [Faulks] cites as literary influences"—Wheeler notes Émile Zola, Charles Dickens and George Gissing among these. Wheeler emphasizes that the naturalistic tendencies of the narrative allow treatment of the war setting without an idealization of the "human" parts of the narrative. Consistently,