The “women behind the guns” were the thousands of female munitions workers who kept the British army supplied with shells during the first world war. England needed these women – at least until the end of the war, when factory jobs were reserved for the returning heroes who had fought in the trenches. The women who worked at the secret Barnbow Factory in Leeds – set up after the disastrous loss of British lives at Neuve Chapelle in 1915, when more shells were used during 35 minutes of action than in the entire Boer war – made a major contribution to the war effort.
In Kate Wasserberg’s uneven but visually stylish production of Alice Nutter’s play about Barnbow, the factory floor and the trenches are intimately entwined in an opening image of death. As Nutter makes clear, the Barnbow women may not have faced the German guns, but they did face peril: slow death by TNT poisoning that turned their skin yellow, or being blown apart by accidental explosions, such as the one that ripped through Hut 42 in December 1915, killing 35 women and injuring many more.
At the heart of Nutter’s likable fictional story, which uses the names of some of those who died, are Agnes and Edith, two sisters who go to work at the factory, lured by the high wages. The spirited Agnes sees Barnbow as a way out of domestic servitude in a house where her employer weighs the dust she has collected; the zealous Sunday school teacher, Edith, who hands out white feathers to men who have not volunteered, hopes to save enough to get an education after the war. Both find themselves and their prickly relationship changed by their experiences at Barnbow.
Threaded through with contemporary first world war songs and full of heart and female solidarity, Nutter’s script puts the lives of ordinary working-class women on stage with linguistic verve. The piece, however, lacks structure, while some scenes seem scrappy and others overextended, and not all of the characters are fully developed. Wasserburg’s production doesn’t make the work seem real or difficult, and ends up veering towards soap opera.
Despite these flaws, it is still gripping. The play needs more time to breathe, and to follow the stories of more characters – we’d get a richer sense of daily life for women who were earning good money in a demanding job, which gave them a taste for independence, but who were still denied the vote and treated like children by the paternalistic authorities.
The ensemble and community cast deliver, with a terrific Colette O’ Rourke as Agnes, the slacker who turns into the fastest munitionette, and there is no doubting that the play is fuelled by anger and outrage. The women who lost their lives never received compensation or recognition for their sacrifices. At the end, yellow balloons rise above the stage, one for every woman lost at Barnbow. Gone, but not forgotten after all.
• At West Yorkshire Playhouse, Leeds, until 9 July. Box office: 0113-213 7700.
