Liverpool premiere for new play about T.E. Lawrence's true-life bid for anonymity as a private soldier in a tank regiment It's 1922, and T.E. Lawrence (of Arabia), now plain T.E. Shaw (of Dorset) is encamped incognito with his bodyguard John Bruce, and the other raw recruits at Bovington Tanks. Seven Pillars of Wisdom come up against the hangover from the Great War..."In Damascus I was a tyrant for a day and felt in my blood the relish of putting a man to the wall. I trod under boot the flesh of dying Turks. The dead and writhing material of history. My throne wasn't made of lintels, it was made of skulls. What medal do you think I deserve?"