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Terence Rattigan was himself an air gunner with the RAF in WWII and used his experiences to create this play about bomber command crews and their families. It is probably this truth at the centre of the play which allows it to speak to a modern audience despite having a structure and style now considered somewhat old fashioned. Three acts, an interval, a realistic single room indoor set, gosh it brought back memories on a weekend when I had already seen a Pinter and an Ibsen!
Rattigan gives us just the briefest of glimpses here of the fear and dread for pilots of bomber command and their families. The expectation of death on every trip, the flippant sense of humour used to save mentioning the real horrors, the waiting for the families, a realisation that life was on hold until the war was over.
The acting was in keeping with the period and style, perhaps a little over formalised for today's taste but perfectly correct.
There might have been five stars but I found the bomber video to be just too amatuerish and the comedy at the end to be just too pointed for comfort ... perhaps it didn't help my mood at the time having to shush the theatre staff chatting behind the Royal Circle rear windows.
