Tinkerty-tonk talent

THEATRE Flare Path Bristol Old Vic

Aircraft, stagecraft - Pilot Officer Terence Rattigan was as skilful with the nuts and bolts of a Wellington bomber as he was with the ins and outs of play-making, and in Flare Path his expertise converges in a splendidly constructed piece of theatre.

It is, admittedly, a period piece, but a fine and authentic one which perfectly captures the spirit of an age - all shocking types and knocking down pink gins with a cheery "Tinkerty-tonk, ducks" as the score of shot- down Jerry planes is noted with the assiduity you only ever find nowadays for wickets lost to the West Indies.

This is Reach for the Sky brought down to earth by a man who knew at first hand that most RAF chaps were not, like Douglas Bader, immortal.

Mick Bearwish's design for the lounge of the Falcon Hotel, the local for the nearby RAF, doubles as the cockpit of a bomber, nicely underlining the empathy of the wives who wait for the servicemen to return from a perilous night raid.

Only egotistical matine-idol Peter Kyle, a Brit-turned-American national, is blissfully unaware of the difference between the wheeze of one of Ours or one of Theirs. Kyle has arrived in pursuit of his former lover, Pat, who is now married to Teddy, a dashing young pilot.

Whether Kyle or Jerry will prove more devastating to Teddy drives one of the engines of the play. Rattigan's concerns are with doing your duty, playing your part. By the end even Kyle's cotton-wool-wrapped life will have felt the pressure of war and in future a buzzing bomber will be as disagreeable to him as lukewarm applause.

Rattigan's broad canvas of hotel guests and staff offers plenty of scope for wry comedy and social comment. War's shattering effect on everything, even the English class structure, is manifest in the coupling of a Polish count now serving in the air force and Doris, an ex-barmaid.

Through the apparent black-out of Doris's cheery hiccupping vulgarity, Amanda Harris reveals chinks of sensitivity. In a similarly well-defined performance from a low-key and laconic Nicky Henson, Kyle is portrayed as a flaky creature gnawed by the insecurity of middle-age and fading limelight.

Given a script (the Count's touching valedictory letter), however, and in the most moving scene of the play, he also reveals Kyle's acting talents. By contrast, too little actressy affectation and too much Home Counties composure in Barbara Wilshere's Pat makes her more persuasive as the dutiful wife than the imminent bolter.

This was a play for audiences looking for certainties in a world of flux and tragedy and it has the nostalgic appeal of a black-and-white propaganda movie.

It's hardly surprising that Rattigan couldn't resist the slightly false and sentimental morale-boosting ending (and a raucous chorus of "I don't want to join the air force", delivered minus the offending smut).

By the end, all intruders have gone, all revelations have been swallowed, everyone is wiser and at peace with themselves. Enjoy it and Andy Hay's accomplished, absorbing production, and give thanks that a decade or so later John Osborne was to drop a bomb that reshaped the dramatic world once and for all.

n`Flare Path' to 13 May (Booking: 0117 987 7877)

Georgina Brown