By Ian Hamilton, journalism student, Darlington College

THE challenges facing any performer doing a one-man show must be immense.

But when the story involves injustices meted out to soldiers during the First World War, and you’re doing it in the war’s centenary year, you wonder how any actor would be up to the job.

We needn’t have worried. Andy Daniel’s stunning portrayal of Private ‘Tommo’ Peaceful in Tuesday night’s performance of Michael Morpurgo’s Private Peaceful at Darlington Civic more than fulfilled expectations.

Playing a wide variety of roles - from overbearing schoolmasters to haggard old women - Daniel kept the audience spellbound throughout, presenting a host of well-rounded characters.

What was most impressive was how he managed to change from one to another so convincingly, using a set made up of little more than a bed and a few costumes.

The play relives the life of an army Private in his final hours before execution for desertion, a fate that befell 306 British and Commonwealth soldiers in The Great War.

As he counts down the hours, Private Peaceful remembers - and acts out - his tragically short yet happy childhood in rural Devon: his time at school with his headmaster and brothers; the death of his father in an accident in the forest; and his first love, Molly, who leaves him devastated when she falls for his brother, Charlie.

More poignantly, he recalls the horrors of life on the front line.

Dealing as powerfully as it does with such a sensitive subject, it was unsurprising that Daniel received a standing ovation.

Simon Reade’s adaptation of the Children’s Laureate’s story runs at Darlington Civic Theatre until Saturday.