SEA AND LAND AND SKY by Abigail Docherty at the TRON

The blurb on the website states the Nurses whose diary entries feature in the Word War 1 drama were sent from Scotland to the Russian ( not the Western) Front as stated in the description:

"1916. Three young women from the Scottish Women’s Hospital are sent to the Russian front to support the war effort. Ailsa is working class and determined to make an impression on her superiors, Millicent is a self-confessed hedonist and Lily is searching for her lost husband. Unprepared for what they witness, each must find a way of coping as they fight to survive an experience that will change them forever..."

This does not seem to be the case in the play itself where they very much feature in the Western Front with English officers and Scottish loafers.This disorientation does take the intrigue factor and culture clash of the story away , from then the play does not quite recover.

The nurses switch from ordinary civilians out for escapism and adventure to completely incurable grade A nuthouse mad in an instant without any graduation of the accumulation of stresses and strains whatsoever thus cutting any dramatic effect out the production instantly and leaving the audience more baffled than pertubedly sympathetic, this is entirely due to the abandoning of the real hook of the play , a story meshed around the diary entries of the three nurses featured , the play rolls along fine until this device is disregarded and the plot is literally lost from there onwards , as well as the audiences sincere attention.The play could have done with more diary entries taking the lead in the narrative throughout the play, especially when the Nurses arrive at the battlefront sectors rather than leaving the diaries when they are still on the ship taking them over , by far the best part of the play , and jettisoning the diary interest for "raw" emotional drama which does not quite work , the main reason being two out of the three nurses are instantly so "mad" as to not have any control of their lost faculties , thus becoming more morbid implausible curiosities than characters with an engaging story to tell.

Certainly a re-visit to this play with more diary entries and less effects could make this excellent idea into a quality production with lasting appeal.

This review from The Guardian is fair , but unsatisfactorily ungenerous in that it does not suggest very slight adjustments which would make the play a long lasting success.