Based on the letters of Frances Zagni’s parents – the daughter of the principal characters in the play – and directed by Jo Emery, The Valentine Letters chronicles the period of the Second World War through the eyes of a pair of newlyweds. While Ursula (Katie Hamilton) lives in north London (Hendon) before relocating to the Home Counties, her husband John (Tom Hilton) finds himself stationed at various locations around the UK as a navigator for the Royal Air Force. Through the diligence and sacrifice of the pilot he was assigned to, John survives being shot down behind enemy lines. He does, however, spend the remainder of the war as a prisoner. Fortunately for him, the German officers allow him to send and receive mail from his wife (albeit with the scrutiny of censorship).

With the exception of perhaps Terence Rattigan’s Flare Plath, plays seldom cover the lives of those serving in the Armed Forces and their loved ones at the same time. In this play, not only do we hear from the perspective of Ursula and John, we have Charlotte Drummond-Dunn playing Frances, the grown-up daughter too, who is the omniscient narrator.

From the off, we hear from John about how disorganised the RAF was in the early days, with little in the way of structure timewise for the recruits or basic provisions at barracks. While a connection isn’t overtly made, the camp that John finds himself in months later could be described as just as ‘good’, if not better than his previous accomodation.

Hamilton’s Ursula is cut from the same cloth as Greer Garson’s ‘Mrs Miniver’ and Celia Johnson’s ‘Laura Jesson’ (Brief Encounter), but that doesn’t make her any less a sympathetic character. Living a ‘Schrödinger-esque’ existence, with her husband being both alive yet ‘gone’, we can see in Ursula her attempts to stave off depresssion and brooding thoughts by being perennially busy, like Penelope in The Odyssey, waiting in readiness with her child for the return of her husband Odysseus.

Similarly, Hilton’s John keeps himself preoccupied with learning to play a musical instrument, demonstrating action as the enemy of thought (as well keeping spiraling depression at arm’s length). But even with his persistence in learning an instrument in impractical places, John’s slow deterioriation of mind and body is apparent…

The Valentine Letters is a ‘gentle’ play, where the ‘horrors’ of the age aren’t vividly depicted, but the fears, concerns and anxieties are. In that respect, it is much like a book where the characters’ interior experiences are brought to the fore, shaping our reality.

© Michael Davis 2024

The Valentine Letters runs at the Brockley Jack Studio Theatre from 11th to 22nd June.