The Stage

Nursing Lives

Published Monday 13 September 2010 at 10:22 by Jeremy Brien

This diverting, fully-masked and mimed tribute to the nursing profession during the Second World War has struck such a positive chord with a wide audience range that its nationwide tour has been extended until April 2011.

A scene from Nursing Lives at Tobacco Factory, Bristol

Writer Rachael Savage, who also performs, and director Amanda Wilsher have worked alongside the Vamos Theatre team to build an inventive wartime portrait, garnered from the recollections of former nurses at Worcester Royal Infirmary. The company’s approach, reflecting its Trestle Theatre roots, marries mime to a variety of other styles, including physical theatre and song-and-dance, but with all three cast members remaining fully masked throughout.

Indeed, among the delights of the evening are the masks themselves, crafted by Russell Dean, artistic director of Strangeface Theatre. They do put extra pressure on the three players to build the characters of the young trainee nurse, the haughty ward sister - strutted to perfection by Honor Hoskins - the soldier boyfriend and a host of others. However, helped by choreographer Rachael Alexander’s forties-style dance sequences, accompanied by the nostalgic likes of Glenn Miller and the Andrews Sisters, they succeed in drawing likeable caricatures endowed with a measure of the British bulldog spirit.

It is easy to see why the show appeals to specialist audiences of nurses and health groups. But it also played to a cosmopolitan Bristol audience for three nights of appreciative houses, providing a healthy prescription to better appreciate a rarely lauded wartime service and how masked theatre can be both spellbinding and expressive.