Photo Credit: Malcolm Silburn
Operation Radar by Suzanne Hawkes is a timely play coming in this year when we commemorate the 80th anniversary of the Second World War and the 90th anniversary of the first use of airborne radar.
It’s set in both 2004, with two WAFFS reminiscing, and between 1936- 1939 looking at those years leading up to the war when RDF (radar direction finding) was being developed, both at Orford Ness and at Bawdsey Manor.
Bawdsey Radar Museum is still here in Suffolk at the old transmission block near the manor and, full disclosure, I am proudly one of their patrons, so as you can imagine I was very interested to go and see this play.
Photo Credit: Jacob Rush
Steve Roche plays Robert Watson-Watt and Thomas Haigh is Arnold ‘Skip’ Wilkins, the father and mother of Radar who battle with lack of funding, old equipment and German born Professor Lindemann, (also played by Steve Roche) and known to Churchill as The Prof, who said RDF wouldn’t work and wanted to develop an alternative. Steve and Thomas have a real affinity with each other as ‘the boffins’ who are determined to make this work and you can feel their frustration when things go wrong, especially when Winston Churchill tears them off a strip.
Photo Credit: Jacob Rush
Churchill is played magnificently by Phil Cory, who has captured the great man’s mannerisms, voice, humour and temper perfectly. He is a man who is coming to the end of his career but is yet to have his ‘finest hour’ and this is also reflected in then character of Air Marshall Dowding, played with great sensitivity by Dennis Bowron.
Photo Credit: Jacob Rush
Dowding, as head of the RAF, knows that this war will be won or lost in the air and as well as needing more planes and men he supports the work being done on radar. ‘The bomber will always get through’ he says as he talks to his dead wife Clarice, played stoically by Virginia Betts, who reminds me of Celia Johnson, such is her on point ‘wartime look’ and accent.
Photo Credit: Jacob Rush
There is a lovely emphasis in the play on how they recruited women into being radar operators, hence Stephanie Stoddart as Vera and Suzanne Hawkes as June, who start the play in 2004 revisiting Bawdsey Manor one last time and looking back at the old days when they worked there. There’s also a plethora of songs, some original, co written by Suzanne Hawkes and Bill Stoddart, some from the time, that lend incredible atmosphere to the piece.
I couldn’t help but feel emotional at the end of the play when they talked about young men going to war and the responsibility the radar operators felt playing their part in the war effort. But I also felt a real sense of pride that radar won not just ‘The Battle of Britain’ for us but the Second World War, and it was due to the work done here in Suffolk.
A must see for people who like good local drama and have an interest in history.
Operation Radar runs until 6th April at the Two Sisters Arts Centre in Trimly – book tickets by calling 01394 279613 or book online Here
SUFFOLK THEATRE 