We Happy Few

And I was so looking forward to reading We Happy Few by Imogen Stubbs. It's such a lovely idea: inspired by the Osiris Players, it tells the story of a troupe of women touring the English countryside during World War II to bring theater to those on the homefront. The play I imagined it to be was brilliant and soaring, full of history and theater and great women's roles: Dancing at Lughnasa meets "let's get a barn and put on a show".

It is not the play I imagined it to be.

It's unfortunately trite and predictable and mawkish, will all the hallmarks of it's provenance: an acclaimed actress finds an inspiring bit of history, and decides that she'll write it herself. The sheltered rich RADA grad and the tomboy greasemonkey fall in love, the bitter mother reveals her wounded heart, the mother who could not accept her son's interracial marriage has her heart changed by tragedy, and the troupe's tough-as-nails leader reveals the real reason she is doing it all ...

In war we're all too horribly aware of the bad stuff ... and that is why we women can make a difference - if only in our little way - because when we connect with our great writers and our audience and with each other ... that collective imagination ... why, then we're promoting the good stuff. All that's required from us - is that we reawaken people's faith in humanity.

And it's all terribly overwritten. Jerry Rapier of Plan-B talks about "spoken subtext" and this is a prime example. A couple of examples:

Am I as heartless as you say? Am I capable of loving anyone? I loved my mother ... I loved her ... infinitely ... and when she died ... I couldn't bear it and ... and I think I panicked and all the love ... flew away ... like a bird had flown out of my heart

I'll always treasure the We Happy Few that was in my head. Pity this wasn't it.