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A night to
remember
One Night
in November Belgrade
Theatre, Coventry ***** IN
its fourth year and second venue, this amazing production is a poignant
retelling of Blitz night in Coventry, 14 November 1940. It tells
the story of a memorable, infamous, night in a personal way that puts
flesh back on the bones of the bald narrative that 70 years passage has
made of this part of Coventry’s history. It is well worth seeing on
many, many levels. It starts as a simple burgeoning love story between
narrator Katie Stanley (Charlotte Richie) and Michael Green (Jason
Langley), a Jewish Birmingham boy, necessarily secretive about his work,
with a meeting on Henley-in-Arden station with the simple but telling
chat-up line – a corker – ‘Would you like some chocolate?’: but also as
a time in Coventry’s history when the Phoenix city earned its stripes. As a love story it is as
doomed as our city – Michael works at Bletchley Park as a code-breaker
with man-eater Sheila Arbuthnot (Verity Kirk) and as such has the inside
story on Luftwaffe plans for Coventry but it is considered treasonable
to let anyone know. It is Katie’s birthday and
though the Stanley family has planned to go to Henley-in-Arden to stay
with Auntie Vi, they wait for Michael who tries to phone, steals a car
and arrives in Coventry in the thick of it. He accidentally meets up with
American Press Association intrepid war reporter (Verity Kirk) intent on
showing her American readers the horrors of war. The night in November
starts with the most realistic noise of a bomb exploding at
too-close-for-comfort proximity. It’s a gruesome tale but bears
retelling. It tickled me that Jack the Communist plays Monopoly in the
bomb shelter. But Katie and her younger sister, the buoyant Joanie
(Helen Coles) lose their mother Margaret (Sanchia McCormack) that night. Their father Jack (James
Hornsby) Communist shop steward in the aircraft industry and the girls
are left heartbroken. Michael is also left broken by his certain
knowledge that Coventry has been sacrificed for a higher ideal. Horror upon horror is heaped
on the family but as friend and ARP man Ken (Barry Aird) remarks at the
end, ‘You can kick a man when he’s down but he’ll get up again’. The staging is simple and
gripping with projection backdrops that enliven the story – from
bomber’s moon to the Cathedral burning.
The final scene, with the use
of shoes to commemorate the dead, is very moving. This is a great
production, written by Alan Pollock and directed by Hamish Glen, that
warrants its annual revival and I hope it becomes as traditional as the
panto. To 19-10-13. Jane Howard
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