Review of Badapple Theatre’s Back to the Land Girls

The Badapple Theatre production Back to the Land Girls opened its third and latest run at the Village Hall in Marton cum Grafton to a small but packed house.

This comedy musical is an imagined wistful reminiscence by two young women shortly after the WW2 about how they met as Land Girls (the Women’s Land Army) and what happened to the hopes and dreams they’d shared during their years of hard farming work helping to feed a nation where food was in short supply.

Although the story is a work of fiction, much of it is springs from the sort of events that may well have occurred at the time.

The actors, Abigail Uttley as the shy Yorkshire lass Biddy and Samantha Edwards as Buff – a forthright Liverpudlian, were excellent in their roles. Many of the lines (written by former member of Hull Truck Company Kate Bramley, the show’s director) were laugh-out-loud funny and soon had the audience captivated – it didn’t take much encouragement to get them to join in with a couple of the sing-along numbers.

Abigail and Samantha also had to carry out all the scene changes, as it hopped from dormitory to farmyard to mangel field to cinema to dancehall (and sometimes back again), and brilliant use was made of a few key props as a bunk bed was turned into a farm gate, and the wheel of an upturned barrow became the reel of a cinema projector.

The sense of atmosphere was heightened by clever lighting and superb sound and visual effects – it’s not easy to conjure up a ballroom on a tiny stage but that’s exactly what Badapple did last night.

One of the great things about the performance was the feeling of “we’re all in this together” so the audience were very much part of the show. And, most importantly, everyone left happy – uplifted by a great evening’s entertainment. Full marks all round.