Remembrance Day part for star of West End’s Birdsong

Ben Barnes, star of the West End stage adaptation of Birdsong, Sebastian Faulks's Great War novel, is to help the Royal British Legion mark Remembrance Day in Trafalgar Square.

The actor, 29, said he was honoured to have been asked to read two poems at the official Silence in the Square commemorations on November 11. For every ticket sold in the first fortnight of this month to the play at the Comedy Theatre, £2 will go to the Poppy Appeal.

Barnes has chosen poems from the 1914-18 period which he found while researching the lead role of Stephen Wraysford.