“Theatre anywhere for everyone, by canal, river and road.” For 47 years, touring company Mikron has been living up to this vision. Tonight, the troupe’s travelling narrowboat home is moored just across the canal from the grassy bank where its functional, simple set is pitched, almost in the shadow of St Mary the Virgin (church bells accidentally romantic as they accompany a first, bashful kiss).
Vashti MacLachlan’s new play is appropriately water-and-boat themed. Subtitled A Tale of Two Wrens, it’s set during the second world war, just when women were being recruited to the navy, in order to, as a slogan of the time had it, “Free a Man for the Fleet”. The quick-moving action follows the experiences of a pair of best friends from Scarborough who join up together. Risk-averse Lily (Rachel Benson) stays on dry land, working in special ops, picking up enemy morse code signals and realising, with horror, the consequences of passing on a German ship’s position.
Meanwhile, gung-ho, engine-mad Ginger (Elizabeth Robin), confined to harbour duties for sexist reasons, longs to practise her mechanic’s skills on a destroyer. She shows what women can achieve out at sea when she disobeys orders and rescues survivors of a torpedoed merchant ship.
Problems personal and professional caused by the attitudes of men of all ranks are presented with wry wit. Not everyone is pleased by the arrival of women in the service: “First they get the vote and now they steer the boat,” sing two drunken sailors (Christopher Arkeston and Joshua Considine), lurching between complaint and flirtation (period-perfect music and lyrics by Kieran Buckeridge). Under Marianne McNamara’s deft direction, the musical, multi-talented, multi-role-playing cast ably weights the buoyancy of fun with a ballast of seriousness.
• All Hands on Deck is one of two productions presented on Mikron’s Waterways summer and autumn tours, alongside Redcoats – Nick Ahad’s Butlins drama; running until 19 October
