Community cost of Spitfire production
An important war-time moment is explored as The Funtington Players stage The Shadow Factory by Howard Brenton at West Ashling Village Hall from April 9-13 (www. funtingtonplayers.org.uk)
The play was commissioned for the opening of the Nuffield Southampton Theatres city venue in 2018 which is when director Tony Clark saw it: “They were opening their new city site and this was the opening production. It was a very different piece. The story came across very well and they were very keen to show off the potential of their new theatre. There were a lot of technical whizz bangs, and I thought that was beyond us but then I realised that the story itself was strong enough and you just didn't need all the technical stuff. We could just tell the story.
“They had seven professional actors and a chorus of 20 community actors which was just all part of getting themselves known in the community. And that’s another thing that we have had to change if we were going to do it in a tiny village hall in West Ashling. But the point is that the story is strong enough. It is set in 1940 and concerns the aftermath of the bombing of the Supermarine Factory at Woolston which made Spitfires. The factory was a priority target for the Luftwaffe and was badly damaged. The government was desperate to restart Spitfire production but knew that rebuilding at Woolston would only encourage further bombing. The Luftwaffe knew where they were. So they decided to distribute production around the city and beyond and requisitioned several local businesses to use as shadow factories, each making components.
“The idea was to build the Spitfire in bits in various locations like a car showroom and a laundry and various shops. They quickly moved the machine tools out of the damaged factory and they managed to get going within two or three weeks which was remarkable.
“The background of the story is that Howard Brenton wanted to tell what happened from the point of view of the people most involved. There are a couple of the big names but everybody else is local to Southampton and he has invented a family that run a laundry. And the family just don't want to see all their business ripped out because they think that what they are doing is important too. They are kicking against it. And you see many of the other people in the town who are getting bombed to hell every night. They track up to the common just to get out of the way of the bombing.”
Even Lady Cooper, whose home at Hursley Park was used for the design and drawing office, found there were consequences not to her liking: “The work was highly classified and she found herself banished from all the areas of her home except the attic!”
Tony believes the play is going to work well for the Funtington Players: “It's a very well-crafted play with lots of strong characters, some real and some imagined, and no lack of dramatic conflict! Howard Brenton has introduced all these characters and all these conflicts and all these different priorities. It does end on a positive note but not everything is resolved…”