Kelly's Heroes (or The Magnificent Seven)

The Magnificent Seven or Kelly’s Heroes (the alternative title supplied by the authors, to avoid confusion with SADS’ recent pantomime) is set in the Sunnyside Nursing Home in 1994 as the 50th anniversary of D-Day approaches. The death of a resident leads to the discovery of a letter which prompts seven residents, all World War 2 veterans, to reflect on their lives, their value as human beings and how invisible and insignificant they have become. A newly appointed nurse who imposes a strict regime on them, makes them feel like prisoners of war and they begin to assert themselves again as they plot to break out and visit the Normandy Beaches for the anniversary. It was inspired by the real life story of courageous veteran, Bernard Jordan, who disappeared from his Hove care home in 2014, to make one last heroic visit to Normandy.

The play is a delightful mixture of happy and sad, with moments of laugh out loud comedy cleverly juxtaposed with desperately heart-breaking incidents. Thanks to Nicki Cresswell’s direction and the quality of acting from the entire cast, these moments were vividly brought to life and the play cracked along at a good pace, despite a number of prompts.

David Norster as Bill Kelly, the title character, was totally convincing as the veteran who’d lived his life feeling guilty that his absence from home had led to the death of his wife and son. It was a clever touch to use his daughter and grandson to portray them in his memories. Mike Clay as Reg Stryde, was the perfect cockney wide-boy, always the joker, bringing in the latest dreadful fashions and novelties (I particularly loved the slippers).  Mike Rich and Richard Searle gave good portrayals of two completely different characters who shared a common past as prisoners of war in Colditz. Roger Minors, very adept at manoeuvring his wheelchair, was totally the modest hero, a former Spitfire pilot addicted to making model planes. Jane Foster gave a warm and touching depiction of the loving grandmother overlooked by her daughter, whose life was always too busy to stay long with her mother. Lesley Preedy as Flo Cooper showed she still had the razor sharp mind of the former Bletchley Park de-coder, but who was never able to reveal how clever she was to those that mattered because of the need for secrecy, and was now reduced to constant knitting and crosswords.

Danny Jeffs really brought to life the nervous manager of the home, always anxious and totally inept at dealing with people, and Gail Norris pulled at our heart-strings as the kindly Nurse Abaline whose husband is tragically killed in the Middle East. Brenda Lambert was every inch the stiff and starchy Nurse Brown, rather stereotypically German, but this was what was required for the plot to prompt the break out.

The same nicely simple set, depicting the lounge of the nursing home, was used for all but the last scene, which took us to Normandy, involving a complete change with furniture being removed and a backcloth introduced. This major change was carried out slickly by the cast and crew, giving minimal interruption to the action. Lighting and sound effects were also simple but effective and the costumes were all well-considered – where did Ron’s dreadful shell suits come from!!

All-together an interesting, at times heart-rending but also highly amusing look at what later life might hold for us and how to grab it by the neck and show that we still count.  A big well-done to everyone involved in this emotional roller-coaster.

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