By now most of us are aware of the work that occurred at Bletchley Park in World War Two, as the code-breaking work of Alan Turing and others has been immortalised in numerous books, films and plays. Many of those works have focused on Turing and his colleagues in Hut 8 as they developed methods to crack the German Enigma machines, and did work which led to the foundations of Computer Science in the UK.
However, Turing and his team were just one tiny piece in the continual twenty-four-hour work being undertaken at Bletchley, and by the end of the war, of the nearly ten thousand staff working at the secret site, around three-quarters were women. This musical tells the story of six women in one of the huts, and appears to be loosely based off some of the lives of the women who really worked there.
We are introduced to our women through the arrival of new girl Josephine (Charlotte Fenning). As she learns the routine of the job, we learn more about each of the characters, and how the war has shaped all of their lives. Having been recruited by having solved a crossword in the newspaper – a method that is familiar to anyone who has encountered a previous Bletchley story, we learn that the other women include Dorothy, a languages expert (Amber-May Hutton), Ida, who has previously served in the navy (Martha Morris), Blanche (Katie Damer), whose brother joined the navy in 1938, before the war started, and Rita, a widow (Lisa Hazel-White), who is in charge of the other girls.
As the story continues we see that, whilst the women have been allowed access into the working world, usually restricted almost entirely to men, they still cannot entirely be allowed to follow their career dreams. Whilst Florence (Tabitha Radcliffe) has to leave because she gets married, and her husband does not want her to continue to work, another is forced to leave because she falls pregnant without wanting to and whilst unmarried – and abortion won’t be an option for another thirty-plus years. Dorothy, the languages expert, is in love with one of the others, but, even though female homosexuality was not illegal, she is still unable to reveal her feelings, and must keep this aspect of her life a secret. Indeed, secrets are a recurring theme, which is to be expected given the intense secrecy which surrounded the war-time operations at Bletchley.
But it is not just military secrets which must be maintained – so many aspects of the girls’ lives have to be hidden away, creating a tense atmosphere which in one scene reaches breaking point as the war drags on and on.
Quite unusually at this point, we’re going to mention the venue for this production – because contextually and tonally it influences the impact of the story. Dots and Dashes is being staged as part of ‘Army at The Fringe’, which is based at Hepburn House Army Reserve Centre, to the north of Edinburgh’s New Town, away from the bulk of the Fringe venues.
It is easily the most well-organised venue we have attended this Fringe, and has the exemplary level of logistics and security which you’d expect from the British Army. It also has an incredibly reasonably priced bar, stocked by one of the many Officer Cadets who have volunteered to work at this venue during the Fringe. Make no mistake, Matt, the Infantry Sergeant-Major who acts as the Production Manager for this venue, and who came and spoke to us before the show started, knows that they have a lot of work to do to adjust the public image of the army, and he’s part of a team that is desperately trying to do just that.
With catchy songs sprinkled throughout the performance, and the clever use of archive film footage, the various threads are deftly woven together to make a compelling tale that moved many of the audience to tears in the final moments, especially as the cast was joined in the final chorus by the Officer Cadets staffing the venue.
There were some issues with the sound mix, which could have been eliminated by the cast being fitted with personal microphones, but which will probably become less noticeable as the run continues, and the cast develops in confidence. Whilst the subject of this show was a closely guarded military secret, our view is that this show should not remain shrouded in such mystery, and is well worth eighty minutes of your time, and a pleasant stroll to the fringe of the Fringe.
