A Bomber’s Moon – bombs, babies and barbarianism in the name of God (Bright Umbrella at The Sanctuary Theatre until Saturday 2 May)

It’s 1941. Sadie Murray – ‘Minty’ to her friends – is employed in the Ropeworks. Her boyfriend has a safe job working as RAF ground crew. But when he belated tells her that he’s signed up to fly, she isn’t sure when or whether she wants to see her Frank again. Soon the Belfast Blitz will change everything when Minty is caught in a raid and a frisky ‘Free State fireman’ enters the burning building to rescue her.

A Bomber’s Moon is a new play by Sam Robinson and Trevor Gill being staged in The Sanctuary Theatre at the bottom of the bottom of Castlereagh Street in the old Mountpottinger Non-Subscribing Presbyterian Church.

Leah Williamson ably brings the central character of Minty to life. Twenty years old, Minty is a sweary chatterbox who tells stories with her eyes, a woman who is a good judge of character, unafraid to stand up to men when she’s scorned, yet has a complete blind spot for her mission hall preaching father. Williamson anchors the plot, thrillingly delivers some of the playwrights’ funniest lines, and skilfully uses variations in physicality to distinguish how Minty warms to the men in her life.

Andy Porter plays the complex character of Jamesy Murray. A firebrand, Catholicism-hating preacher by day suffering from WW1 shell shock, but a more sinister figure at night who keeps a firearm in a biscuit tin and skulks around the east Belfast streets exacting justice and leading men into violence. A deadly mix of pseudo-religious fanatical ideology. Porter allows Jamesy’s character to simmer for much of the play before exploding in the middle of the second act with a well-choreographed fight scene.

The Murray’s front room sits to one side of the stage (complete with porcelain dogs), opposite the air raid shelter which Minty and her fella enjoy escaping to. Glenn McGivern plays Frank Warnock, a young man who is confident about what he wants and pushes forward before thinking … deserving the many slaps Minty/Williamson doles out! McGivern later returns as another character to powerfully call time on Jamey’s rein of terror.

John Travers completes the cast, playing the aforementioned Drogheda fireman, Sean O’Connor, who brings a brief snatch of tranquillity to Minty’s chaotic life. Travers revels in balancing cheekiness with tripping over northern sensibilities and the vocabulary differences that divide the pair’s backgrounds.

Sue Lawley’s voice unexpected pops up as the voice of the radio news reader.

Sam Robinson has a knack of bringing social history to life. There’s a thrill seeing his work performed in the heart of the area he’s writing about, earthed to the streets and places he liberally mentions in the script, connecting people with the lives of previous generations. He avoids the trap – that other’s don’t always swerve – of sugar-coating the history. Robinson is unafraid to include unvarnished truths, bust some myths, and explore the wider context.

85 years on, Robinson and co-writer/director Gill tell a tale of destruction amid two overlapping conflicts, prejudice, discrimination, hypocrisy, gangsterism and the pain of latent love. The casting is superb, and the simple set more than adequate for the locations the story visits.

The first half is full of fun – Minty’s retelling of the tale of ‘the Ballykinler turd’ just one hilarious highlight – while the mood descends into a deep darkness after the interval. Robinson and Gill squeeze a lot into the story and some scenes could definitely be trimmed or even dropped, particularly in the baggy second act whose step-by-step narrative narrative dilutes the underlying drama and an audience’s ability to fill in missing gaps.

A Bomber’s Moon runs in The Sanctuary Theatre until Sunday 19 April (currently a few tickets remain for Saturday’s matinee), with three additional performances to meet demand now scheduled on Friday 1 and Saturday 2 May. If you pop along, watch out for the immersive bar beforehand as the front of house team take you back to the 1940s.

Photo credit: Melissa Gordon/Gorgeous Photography NI

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