By Alan Stockdill

Review of Kingston Bagpuize Drama Group production

24 – 26 April 2025

Just a couple of weeks before commemorations of the 80th anniversary of Victory in Europe Day, it was a poignant delight to see a play set around the 50th anniversary of D-Day. As survivors from the Second World War become fewer and frailer, our connection with that time increasingly becomes one of history and story. This excellent drama group’s Chair remarked in her thoughtful programme introduction, that they are “passionate about creating and telling stories the same way communities have done for hundreds of years.” It was clear that the four actors and director in this production had truly poured their souls into this tale of revisiting wartime locations and honouring the memory of those who did not return.

The play’s plot has a familiar flavour. A D-Day veteran, Tommy, has a yearning to return to Normandy for the 50th anniversary celebration. He enlists the help of his two friends, Alf and Edwin, from the Nursing Home where they all reside, to pursue this improbable project. They form an escape committee, up against a formidable resistant force in the shape of “Matron”.

The first Act is set in the Yorkshire Nursing Home, culminating in their dawn escape, finally and rather touchingly approved by a saluting Matron. The second Act is in Europe as they travel through Belgium and into Normandy, culminating in an emotional scene at the war cemetery where Tommy’s best friend lies.

The power and indeed the humour of this play emerges from the bond between the three elderly gents, as they banter, bicker, tease and plot together. They are not a harmonious trio and represent three very different wartime experiences. Tommy, sensitively portrayed by KBDG stalwart (30 years!) Mike Lacey, is eager, determined, unwell, and hopelessly naive about his dream to return to Normandy. His co-conspirators did not see active wartime service. Edwin was an officer in the administrative pay corps and Alf was a “Bevin Boy”, toiling in the Welsh coal mines.

Recent KBDG signing Mike Varnom brought great authenticity and understated humour to the pompous ex-officer Edwin with obsessive penchant for good order in the form of meticulous escape committee agendas and minutes.

The third member of the trio, Alf, is a simpler soul, and gave Richard Buss great opportunity for languid comic timing and looks of humorous incomprehension. Together the three worked really well, ricocheting the play’s tone from comedy to pathos.

The fourth member of the cast – or should that be the 4th, 5th and 6th – is entrusted with three roles: Matron, then a Belgian customs officer and finally Yvette, the owner of the French house where Tommy’s friend George was killed in 1944. The script calls for the same actress to play all three roles, thus enabling a running joke about how the Belgian and French women they encounter all remind the veterans of “Matron”. In Tasha Padbury, the production deployed an actress of impressive versatility and charisma. Her matron was suitably scolding, her customs officer notably chilling and as Yvette, she offered a perfect French accent that stayed sufficiently remote from the girls of ‘Allo ‘Allo!

There were two standout scenes in the production, both in the second Act. First when the gents – definite temptation to refer to them disrespectfully as “codgers” – have a drinking session in Yvette’s house, making ever grander and more ludicrous toasts. The camaraderie between them was beautifully evoked, the earlier barriers between the sole war combatant and his two non-combatant associates touchingly dissolved.

The final scene in the cleverly-imagined war cemetery was particularly poignant, as Tommy completed his first, and presumably final visit to the grave. The scene built powerfully to maximum poignancy as the names of actual local men from Southmoor village who died in the Second World War were read out and the evocative notes of the Last Post rang through the hall.

Back to Chair Emily’s programme remarks –  “sometimes you will see something that really does touch your heart or blow your mind”. In that final few minutes, we absolutely did. Bravo and congratulations to the cast, director Laurence Brockliss and the whole redoubtable team at KBDG who always ensure their shows run so slickly. Once again, a privilege to be in your audience.

Adrian McGlynn

Banbury Cross Players