When The Lights Go On Again

As always, it is a pleasure to visit Garforth Musical Society, such a friendly atmosphere, especially for this production - the hall bedecked with bunting and WW2 memorabilia. The entire cast and crew must be congratulated for presenting a wonderfully nostalgic show, as their audience truly delighted in joining in with wartime songs and touching scsnes from that period.

It never fails to delight me that there is still an obvious need to keep that wartime spirit alive - this musical play, written by Roy Sault, manages to encapsulate snippets and stories from the war very cleverly - the Parker Family, making the best of rationing and a testy Grandma, the queues for rationing, the ARP Wardens and the 'over the garden wall' exchanges between Elsie and Vera, all classic radio - type comedy, not to mention the Parker son lost at sea - it had the audience laughing and a bit teary, absolutely spot-on. The cast all played their parts enthusiastically and had been nicely directed by Erin - I appreciate what little space there is on stage at this venue, but a little more movement at the start of the show would have been in keeping with the piece - however, this was made up for by the sincerity of the cast, especially in the School-room and Dance scenes. The children, both the Parker Family and other schoolchildren, performed extremely well - I don't know how, but they managed to convey that 40's innocence which has long disappeared today - well done!

As always, Brenda had worked hard on the vocals as well as accompanying on the piano. On the whole, hard work had been put into the costumes and make-up; some of the hairstyles seemed a little modern, but this did not detract from the overall presentation - the sets worked very well and did not overwhelm the cast, which can happen on a small stage. Lighting and sound were of the usual high standard. I liked the newsreel footage that linked the scenes - many of the audience were quite moved when hearing the newsreaders and Mr Churchill giving his famous speeches - and seeing our dear Queen, now in her 90's, on the Palace balcony with her parents and sister- dressed in her ATS uniform!

With a referendum near, it was a poignant evcening to see Britain as she was once was. Congratulations to all for a memorable evening!

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