Inspired by his 2002 TV film about an all-women wartime band, Alan Plater's musical hits three buttons in one go: nostalgia, swing and female empowerment. With all that going for it, it's bound to have a life far beyond Leeds.
Plater's format could hardly be simpler: from the perspective of the present, widowed Elizabeth looks back at her memories of the wartime Blonde Bombshells. We see her tremulous schoolgirl self auditioning for the band along with a trio of equally improbable hopefuls: a ukelele-playing nun, an upper-crust saxophonist and a male drummer ready to don a frock to dodge the draft. And the novices rapidly unite with the cynical resident quartet to do a BBC broadcast in far-flung Hull.
The second-half reunion between the aged Elizabeth and the fugitive drummer, after a 50-year-gap, is a slightly dodgy framing device; and Plater never explains how these wartime collisions of talent changed people's lives. But the show's charm lies in its blend of innocence and experience: the newcomers are inducted into a hard-bitten showbiz world where you are "either a drummer or a musician - you can't be both". Also there is the unfaked joy of seeing the band come together in double quick time and of watching actors perform 40s standards on sax, trumpet, double-bass, piano and drums with great elan.
Plater taps into our collective memory, showing that wartime liberated women in unexpected ways. But Roxanna Silbert's celebratory production is also held together by the veteran Dilys Laye as the reminiscent heroine. Having recently stolen a West End Les Liaisons Dangereuses with her aristocratic poise, Laye suggests there is a blonde bombshell lurking in every woman: singing If I Had A Ribbon Bow with plangent emotion and gradually drawn back into the world of the wartime swingers, Laye is the incarnation of style.
John Woodvine lends his silvery charm to the paper-thin role of her returning beau. Claire Storey's singing nun dispatches an innuendo-ridden George Formby number with radiant innocence. And Victoria Moseley endows a snooty socialite with a hard-edged sax-appeal. It may not be high art but, as the song says, T'Aint What Cha Do, It's The Way That Cha Do It; and this memory-unlocking show fulfils its mission perfectly.
· Until May 22. Box office: 0113-213 7700.
