Spoken word will be a key part of an event to mark the centenary of the first world war’s battle of the Somme at the Imperial War Museum on Thursday 30 June. Poet Kat Francois will be performing Raising Lazarus, her play about her relative’s role in the British West Indies Regiment, while poet and broadcaster Ian McMillan and documentary photographer Ian Beesley tell a story of the first world war, using a real magic lantern projector, from the point of view of men who survived it in Magic Lantern Tales. The Night Before the Somme starts at 8pm and finishes at midnight.