The Blonde Bombshells of 1943 – Upstairs at the Gatehouse

Lauren Storer, Emma Jane Morton and Katie Arnstein in The Blonde Bombshells of 1943 at Upstairs at the Gatehouse, London. Picture: Mitzi de Margary

The Blonde Bombshells of 1943 at Upstairs at the Gatehouse, London until 29 June.

You probably remember it better as a TV movie with Judi Dench called The Last of the Blonde Bombshells but 14 years on from that we’ve got a revival of the original 1989 version of Alan Plater’s ‘play with music’ at the Gatehouse in north London.

This is no earnest drama about the horrors of wartime but an extended comedy sketch based on the real-life Ivy Benson all-woman band resident on BBC ‘wireless’ at that time and enjoying huge national success.

In fact, it very nearly isn’t a play at all as the storyline is so threadbare. Act II is pretty well all music with the eight-strong band of seven girls and a lone Jack-the-lad happy to wear a frock if it means avoiding getting called up swinging away as if their lives depended on it in their radio concert from the Hull Tivoli.

This a show that requires a different type of triple-threat performer, actors who can play a musical instrument to professional standard and sing, and resident director John Plews has chosen wisely.

At least that’s the requirement for the three ‘Valentino Sisters’, innocent Liz getting her first snog (Emma Jane Morton), Lily the naive singing nun (Katie Arnstein) and posh-totty-in-khaki Miranda (Lauren Storer), but while the other girls get little chance to shine in the singing stakes, they all get to show their versatility on a variety of musical instruments.

The unlikely story is that, with a big radio show coming up that evening, bandleader Betty (Louisa Beadel making a strong professional debut and playing a mean soprano saxophone) needs four quick replacements after her troupe has thinned down a bit after encounters with Americans GIs.

In comes a naive schoolgirl who loves to sing, a ukulele-playing nun who performs the suggestive songs of George Formby without understanding their double entendres, and an upper-class Army girl from Oxford with the sort of airs and graces that the down-to-earth northern lasses cannot abide.

All get the gig because Betty is desperate as does the scared-to-fight Pat (Josh Haberfield) after his impressive drum solo – he can sing a bit too – and he gets fixed up with a pink dress and blonde wig after which, apart from the hairy legs, you can hardly tell the difference, especially on the radio!

And although there’s the odd reference to one of the girls still mourning a long-dead husband, another not having heard from her man since Christmas, and a few home truths about a man’s duty to serve his country, this is a show about the happier side of wartime when the girls didn’t have to do their men’s ironing, cooking and mending and could do their bit by entertaining the troops and their stay-at-home families.

There’s an old Pathé newsreel of Churchill, Stalin and Roosevelt beamed on to a wall to create a genuine period feel, but it is all a jolly excuse for a bit of good old-fashioned nostalgia with swinging versions of the hits of the time. ‘Body and Soul’, ‘Memories of You’, ‘Tuxedo Junction’, ‘Ain’t Whatcha Do, It’s the Way That You Do It’ and ‘Don’t Sit Under the Apple Tree’ all get rousing treatments with ace pianist Eloise Kay, Ashley Stirling (trumpet) and Giovanna Ryan (bass) all in terrific form as well.

The stars of my youth like Gracie Fields, Jewel and Warriss, Flanagan and Allen all get a mention and there are some lovely spiky northern putdowns for humour. When posh Miranda says she got her name from a Shakespeare character, one of the others is quick to respond: “Ooh, I must tell our Shylock when we get home.”

It’s all excellent experience for the young cast, Angharad Sanders is the MD, Phil Lindley the set designer, Suzi Lombardelli’s costume designs hark back to a very different time, and Aaron J Dootson is responsible for the atmospheric lighting and effects.

Oh yes, and the audience had a good time too even if this isn’t the greatest play in the world or even one of Plater’s best.

Jeremy Chapman

www.upstairsatthegatehouse.com