April 2010

Coventry, November 1940. Headstrong Katie Stanley is training to be a teacher. While awaiting the All Clear signal from an air raid warning, she encounters Michael, an Oxford University Romantic Literature tutor stranded at a railway station. It could be the beginning of a straightforward love story but nothing is straightforward in wartime. Unknown to Kate, Michael has been forced to turn his linguistic skills to deciphering German codes at Bletchley Park. Katie lives with her family in Coventry, a city living under the threat of war. They have no idea how terrible the threat is ... but Michael does.

A vivid and haunting drama, One Night in November addresses the theory that the British Government had advanced warning of the attack on Coventry. Was the city sacrificed for the greater good? Or to hasten America's entry into the war? The play also examines the true cost of the attack upon the people who experienced it.

Ashby Dramatic Society put on a superb performance. Their attention to detail with the set and authentic period props was much appreciated by the audiences and the author who attended on the penultimate night. With the terrific special effects during the air raid itself, the audiences felt as if the theatre really was coming under attack!

A prolific playwright, Alan Pollock has also scripted original dramas for television as well as episodes of several long-running series such as The Bill and A & E.