Surrey Comet:
Rachel Harper’s exciting new wartime play, ‘Wellington 24’ premiered at Lady Eleanor Holles from the 10th to the 13th of February as part of the schools ‘Write the girl’ initiative.

‘Wellington 24’ is based on the true story a factory of female munitions workers in Wales , who built a Wellington bomber plane in a record breaking 2 hours during WW2 in 1943. The men are gone and ‘it’s left to the women in the workman’s boots’ to pick up the pieces in the factory. With a fierce group of character ranging from Ruth, the young, ditsy flirt to devilish, old bag Evelyn Cotes or poor, innocent, war torn soul, Eileen Daphne, there is never a dull moment on stage, and the relationships that the characters form with each other, are truly heart warming. The play touches on themes of loss, prejudice and violence but the overriding  theme is of love and comradely amongst the women, littered with a few morale lifting songs to lighten the mood. 

Surrey Comet:

 The play was the first outcome of LEH’s new ‘Write The Girl’ programme which was kickstarted by the schools previous Director of Drama Ben Tait. The programme has been designed to encourage female play-writers and help them get their play commissioned, whilst also pushing for more scripts for strong all female casts to be written for schools such as LEH, as females parts in plays are often boring and spineless and supporting roles. We wanted female roles that were at the heart of the action and strong characters that could inspire the audience, hence why Rachel’s script was so incredible for us. Every character was so defined and strong that the play was very empowering to put together as a member of the cast. The play was a joint production with Hampton High school, creating a very strong all female cast, that was a pleasure to work with. 

Surrey Comet:

It was a truly unique experience to be so involved in the creative process of producing this play and working so closely with the writer. It is an experience that none of us will forget. I hope that many other fantastic plays such as this will emerge from the ‘Write the girl’ programme and that many other schools across the clients will have the chance to participate in such an incredible project in the future. 
 

By Emily Phillips.