I was due to see Red at the Pilch this evening, but it was cancelled because of a leaky ceiling. That’s the second play in two weeks that’s been affected this way. Either there’s a problem with Balliol’s plumbing, or the students in the rooms above have got seriously blocked toilets. I’m not sure I want to think about it.
Instead, I ran across town and got to the Burton Taylor Studio just in time for Root Ginger Productions’ We Could Be Here A While. They generously gave me a complimentary ticket at the last minute, an act which merits both gratitude and honesty. On this occasion, the former is easier to give than the latter. So, to Root Ginger, a genuinely huge thank you for the seat.
We Could be Here A While is a newly-written comedy by Charlotte Ward about people in an air-raid shelter during World War Two. While they wait for the all-clear, they meddle in each other’s love lives, try to get rid of a pigeon, go and defuse a bomb that hasn’t gone off (first sign of poor historical research?), and suspect each other of being German spies.
The atmosphere could almost be redolent of a wartime Ealing comedy, except Ealing didn’t make any comedies during the war. It was too serious. But the heartwarming, busybody English types that fill Passport to Pimlico (1949) are not far from the gossips, off-duty airmen and bumbling doctors that populate this fictional bunker.
The problem here is that very little of consequence occurs during the hour of the air raid, and what does happen doesn’t always seem grounded in any sort of genuine motivation. It feels as though the characters take actions in the hope that they might be funny, rather than because they make sense in the world of the play. What lay at the heart of the Ealing films was a great, sadly ironic sympathy for the plight of the British. This play needs to find that heart.
So for example, at odd moments characters directly address members of the audience, asking their advice. It’s a sporadic device that seems to have nothing to do with the atmosphere of the rest of the play, evincing a titter of surprise but no more. The nervous RAF pilot, who fancies the girl he recognises from school, is scared witless of talking to her, but when he finally does pluck up the courage, he turns into a boasting braggart. The doctor, who might or might not be a German spy, happens to have a prescription with him written in German, because the person it’s for speaks German as their first language – a bizarrely awkward way to resolve that mystery. I appreciate that this is all done in the name of comedy, but unfortunately it frequently steps into the world of silliness rather than genuine humour.
On top of the content, the language Ward has used for her wartime protagonists could also be a little more redolent of the era. Phrases like ‘On my to-do list’, ‘Zip up your man-suit’, ‘Incredibly helpful’, ‘Back me up here’, and ‘Can you not?’ sound more like the 2020s than the 1940s. And one of the key speeches, a story about Mrs Greenwood’s husband, whose life was saved because he was eating one of her scones when it stopped a German bullet, makes no sense at all. One of the other characters points out that a scone can’t stop a rifle shell, and Mrs Greenwood explains that it was so cold that the cake was frozen solid. I could be missing something here, but if that were the case, how could he be eating it in the first place? (I mention this not because the anecdote has far-reaching significance for the action of the play, but because it’s totemic of the need for a writer to think through every element.)
To be fair, there could be depths here that I am not reaching. The whole central plotline about people interfering in Louise Stonestreet’s romance plans could be symbolic of modern dating, and how people’s psyches are buffeted in online social communities which are today’s isolated bunkers of our own creation. But I think it’s mostly a genuine attempt to create some innocent comedy in an unusual and interesting scenario.
There are certainly moments of theatrical power among the banter. The sound of the bombers flying overhead, depositing their payloads on the docks and warehouses of nearby East London, is actually quite sobering, and contrasts fascinatingly with the inconsequential chatter of the bunker denizens. And Louise’s (Elizabeth Millett’s) rendition of ‘(There’ll Be Bluebirds Over) The White Cliffs of Dover’ stops everybody, both audience and characters, in their tracks. I don’t think there’s ever been such an evocative hope for peace from the depths of English darkness, and for it to be sung with two ‘bluebirds’ (RAF officers) right there in the bunker only adds to its poignancy.
We Could Be Here A While is certainly an original, fun idea with oodles of potential (and a great title). While this production jollies along pleasantly, it yearns for a little more coherence and more attention to detail in the script. But these are all fixable with a few extra drafts, and it is great to see student writing that doesn’t take itself too seriously. As Corporal Jones was wont to say in ‘Dad’s Army’: ‘Don’t panic!’