Spitfire Girls offers such promise. It’s a powerful idea to stage a play about the women pilots who delivered fighter planes to where they needed to be in the Second World War.
The 168 “ATA Girls” of the Air Transport Auxiliary included Amy Johnson, the first woman pilot to fly solo (in civilian life in 1930) from London to Australia. She was one of the 16 female ATA pilots who died flying planes between British airfields.
Typically, a day’s flying for these women included “flying anything to anywhere”. It meant several flights in different types of aircraft. They had a chitty with a list like a dance card.
As the play’s programme says: “In just over four years, another pilot, Mary Wilkins flew 76 different types of plane and visited some 210 airfields.
Sadly, the excellent programme, with a cover designed like a 1940s magazine such as The Picture Post, priced 4d, promises more than the play can deliver.
Such a brilliant subject for a drama is under-developed. The writing is not compelling. The plot revisits several well-worn tropes. We miss the Blitz spirit, the wit and irony of the war. Much of the acting comes over as stylised and self-conscious.
The material should be heart-wrenching. Sadly, conveyed thus it is difficult to engage with. The story is told of two sisters who sign up for the Air Transport Auxiliary against their father’s wishes.
The play unfolds in a series of short scenes.
We get glimpses of their training, of a love affair, of loyalty and loss but there is little chemistry between the characters. In a portrayal of one of the most traumatic (and heroic) periods of British history, I found little moving.
It cannot be easy to recreate this in a snapshot. The danger is falling into the theatrical equivalent of painting by numbers.
There are rare moments. The actors’ voices are clear, and their crisp diction sounds like the voices of the 1940s. Hannah Morrison who plays the younger sister, Dotty is a fine dancer.
A scene in which Morrison as Dotty tells her older sister Bett (played by the play’s author, Katherine Senior) how unexciting she fears their lives will be after the adrenaline of the war, is the nearest the play comes to an honest performance. Much of the rest comes across as stilted.
Spitfire Girls is at Cambridge Arts Theatre until Saturday, April 11.
