“It’s a day-in-the-life piece about seven women and one man (who wears a frock some of the time) trying to become a band and play the popular music of the time.” So said the late Alan Plater, pithily summing up his 2004 stage play (adapted from his 2000 TV drama, featuring Judi Dench, Cleo Laine and others) set in wartime England.
Betty leads an all-female band that sheds players every time they play a GI base (“Oversexed!” says one; “overrated!” another). Tonight, the Bombshells are booked to play a BBC event in “a north-east coast town” (Hull). They are four short of the necessary eight. Cue auditions. What follows is schematic rather than dramatic.
