Since re-opening after refurbishment / COVID closure, Octagon Theatre Bolton has mixed tried-and-tested crowd-pleasers like Spring and Port Wine with less familiar plays such as The Book of Will. The thunderous audience ovation at the conclusion puts Alan Plater’s Blonde Bombshells of 1943 firmly in the crowd-pleasing category.
Betty (Georgina Field) leads the all-female Blonde Bombshells dance band which raises morale during the Second World War by touring army barracks. However, as members of the band tend to pair off with the soldiers, the Bombshells run short of players just as a prestigious recording for the BBC is scheduled. Betty, therefore, auditions an innocent schoolgirl, a nun too naïve to understand the saucy lyrics of some of the songs and a member of the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps who, although far from innocent, is a tad eccentric. The band are so desperate, they will consider even a male drummer so eager to avoid conscription he is willing to dress in drag.
Blonde Bombshells of 1943 is not a musical, in that the songs do not drive along the plot or articulate the feelings of the characters, but rather a play with music. The plot is paper-thin to the extent one could argue the author is as much concerned with the music (the songs are played in full rather than as extracts) as with the story. The limited drama arising from the character of Patrick (Rory Gradon), whose efforts to avoid conscription offend those band members who have lost loved ones during the conflict, is easily solved when he has a change of heart and agrees to join up. The tentative romance between the caddish Patrick and the innocent schoolgirl is too unconvincing to have the impact described in the text.
The first act is a series of jokes alternating with songs. The gags could politely be considered vintage—the cinema usherette who walked backwards down the aisle during her wedding. Act two amounts to little more than a staged concert. The show is, therefore, best taken as a tribute to the swing / dance band era and its success very much dependent upon the ability of the cast to perform all the songs live on stage. However, the success of the production at Octagon Theatre Bolton is due not so much to the credibility of the cast as musicians as them being convincing as a group, having the warmth of friends joining together to tackle adversity and fulfil a common objective. Tain't what the cast do, it's the way that they do it that gets results.
Stacey Ghent, playing older than her years as the eccentric solider Miranda, is a comic highlight, casually defusing a ticking bomb with a hair-clip before proceeding to freshen her make-up. She even gets a laugh just with her hesitant pronunciation of the word "Hull". Gleanne Purcell-Brown lights up the stage as the overeager, permanently cheerful Lily.
Jess Curtis designs a startling set. The audience enters for act two to find a whacking great bomb centre-stage. The final transformation into a glittering dance hall, complete with mirrorball, aids the development of the feel-good conclusion.
Director Zoë Waterman walks a fine line between respectful renditions of the songs and the wish-fulfilment fantasy of the plot. Even the stagehands are involved in developing the authentic mood-changing props while dressed as air raid wardens or radio technicians. While the songs are, where appropriate, sung in American accents, the stage announcements and between-song banter have a distinctly Northern tone.
As the show moves to a climax, Waterman allows a full fairy-tale tone to develop. Lauren Chinery’s gawky schoolgirl becomes a sophisticated torch singer and Gleanne Purcell-Brown adopts Billie Holiday’s gardenia in her hair. The approach works like a dream, getting the audience to their feet by the closing number.
The slight plot and skimpy characterisation prevents Blonde Bombshells of 1943 from being a great play, but an excellent cast and imaginative direction makes the show a fine tribute to the dance band era.