An original sparkling comedy - with live music - that really goes with a swing!

“The Octagon is still setting the standards for north west theatre… Forget the weather and the World Cup - the Octagon has a hot-shot winner you simply must see”

Manchester Evening News (5 star review)

“‘It Ain’t What You Do It’s The Way That You Do It’ and the Octagon and the Hampstead Theatre have got the results with this five star crowd pleaser”

What’s On Stage (5 star review)

'Hurry to buy tickets... There are so many laughs in the superbly written script but best of all is the sense of real enjoyment from the multi talented cast"

Clitheroe Advertiser

"Combines dry Northern humour with the impressive recreation of 1940s swing band classics from a musically gifted cast"

Metro (4 star review)

“A major achievement… The music is fantastic, with all instruments and vocals provided by the multi-talented cast”

Bolton Evening News

Inside every respectable woman, there’s a Blonde Bombshell screaming to get out...

Wartime bandleader Betty is in a predicament.  Every time the Blonde Bombshells, the most glamorous swing band in the North, play a GI camp, they lose members.  Four of her girls have gone AWOL, and with an important BBC radio engagement in the offing, Betty needs to find new musicians - fast.

Among those who turn up to the hastily organised auditions are naïve schoolgirl Liz, who plays a mean clarinet; Miranda, an upper-crust saxophonist; singing nun Lily, and Patrick, a male drummer prepared to don a frock in order to avoid a drafting.  With her motley line-up complete, Betty and the band prepare to dodge Hitler’s bombs and make the dangerous journey to far-flung Hull - and potential fame and fortune.

Alan Plater’s warm and witty musical play is filled with northern deadpan humour and glorious, live swing band performances of 1940s classics by Fats Waller, the Andrews Sisters, Flanagan and Allen, George Formby and Glenn Miller.  Alan Plater is a prolific and revered writer, whose body of work includes Close The Coalhouse Door, The Beiderbecke Affair, The Barchester Chronicles and Fortunes Of War.  Blonde Bombshells Of 1943 is based on Alan’s hugely successful TV drama The Last Of The Blonde Bombshells, which won BAFTAs, a Golden Globe and a brace of Emmy nominations.

Take a sentimental journey with the Blonde Bombshells!

Following its Octagon run, this production will transfer to the Hampstead Theatre (www.hampsteadtheatre.com).

A previous version of this play was performed at the West Yorkshire Playhouse in 2004.

  Generously sponsored by

 Production photos: