Spitfire Girls at Theatre By The Lake

Keswick, Cumbria, UK. Wednesday, 26 March 2025.

Once again the Theatre By The Lake comes up trumps with an entertaining production of Spitfire Girls. We booked our tickets as soon as we read about they play and invited Mary's aunt to join us. We treated ourselves to pre-theatre tapas at Bar eS and then off to the theatre.

Sometimes I think they should only allow audiences in by seat number rather like boarding an aircraft. We were at the end of a row and the remaining audience members trickled in ending with the central couple last. We spent quarter of an hour doing repeated Mexican waves along the row!

The plot concerns two sisters during the second world war who sign up for the Air Transport Auxiliary partly for the excitement of doing something for their country and partly to get away from their stultifying life working for their farmer father. The play covers their induction, training, the people they meet, romances they have and what befell them later, told partly in flashback. 

We learnt so much about an aspect of the war that was previously unknown to us. The ATA used women pilots to ferry new, repaired and damaged military aircraft between factories, assembly plants, transatlantic delivery points, maintenance units (MUs), scrapyards, and active service squadrons and airfields.

The play is very much carried by the two brilliant female leads with excellent support from three other members of the cast who play a variety of roles. A thoroughly enjoyable evening.