If only the producers of The Darkling Plain had thought to provide lashings of ginger beer as the audience enter the theatre: it would have made the atmosphere for this 1940s pastiche complete. Imagine an unholy marriage of Enid Blyton and Noël Coward and you have the flavour of Bea Roberts' winning, funny yet ultimately moving play.
It opens in the upper-class home of General Carruthers, where Ma and Pa enjoy cocktail hour while Dickie longs to go to war and argues with his "goose" of a sister, Rosemary. From there it's off to the spruce working-class kitchen of Sidney and Florence, whose son, Frank, is also preparing to join the army. Cue a meeting of hearts across the class divide, enlivened by the kind of "Jolly? Rather!" language that hasn't been used since about 1962.
The Darkling Plain is more than just a loving parody of wartime drama, however. Roberts also weaves in a scathing satire on the modern relationship between the UK and America. Her war is not the war against Germany, but a war against terror waged against an unsuspecting Middle Eastern territory by a belligerent US, with whom the British government declares itself in absolute allegiance. Not that everyone in the British military agrees with this official obeisance. "Will we be fighting all scary things?" demands one officer when told of the war plans. "Ghosts? Spiders?"
Yes, it's silly, but Nick Blakeley's impeccably acted production brushes all objections aside - especially as the mood of the play darkens, and you find yourself not only laughing at the characters, but crying with them, too.
