By Ross Brewster
Blonde Bombshells of 1943, the unashamedly nostalgic musical play at Keswick’s Theatre by the Lake, is a tribute to women in wartime Britain with their get up and go, make do and mend, keep spirits high attitude in the face of the reality and horrors of war.
The jokes are corny and the plot a bit thin, but the music is excellent in a witty, warm-hearted charming production.
It’s Girl Power long before we’d ever heard of the Spice Girls. An eight-piece swing band that’s a few members short of a full complement and with a live appearance on the BBC in the offing.
Band leader Betty (Georgina Field) is a keep calm and carry on person, even if she needs to recruit new blood at the 11th hour. She plays the part well, with a mixture of indomitability under pressure and the ability to somehow herd the vastly different characters into a harmonic whole.
You could not get a wider selection of characters as the new band members – a singing, banjo playing nun, an innocent sixth form schoolgirl, a posh military type and a male drummer who is willing to wear a blonde wig and red dress.
The show stealer among the Blonde Bombshells – that’s the name of the band – is Stacey Ghent’s Miranda, with her tales of a love life involving Dukes and Earls. She’s put her life of privilege to good advantage. As a band member she’s versatile, right down to her bomb disposal skills. She is very much the outsider among this disparate bunch of northerners and tailor-made for this comic role.
There is a remarkable solidarity among the women who are thrown together by their love of music. Music is everything in life to their leader Betty. The story mixes comedy and music in a multi-talented performance and there is an honest sentimentality about it which just about makes up for some of its weaknesses.
With eight characters to introduce to the audience in the first half, which is more play than music, there was just a snapshot of the back stories of each of them so it was difficult to delve any deeper.
There was a sense of sadness in the background. One band member’s husband was killed a week into their marriage, another waited for the letter that would tell her that her partner, in a Japanese POW camp, was alive.
A reminder, just really touched on, that behind the glamour of the band there was a war going on with all its terrible consequences. The play asked the question, was it ethical to be entertaining people at such a time?
Betty puts it simply. “Don’t you know why we laugh? To stop ourselves from crying.”
It is one day in the life of the band, seen through the eyes of a grandmother with its love, betrayal and flash of stardom.
Behind the façade of witticisms about fellow band members, cutting but never cynical, there is a shared stoicism. Bombs may fall about them, but these girls are true survivors.
The Blonde Bombshells will be swinging their 1940s music at the Theatre by the Lake until July 29, with selected matinee dates.
