AR Gurney’s famous play Love Letters is one of the most frequently staged plays of the 20th century, especially in America. It tells the story of a friendship and an enduring, if barely recognised love through extracts from a series of letters exchanged over decades. It is popular because the actors do not need to learn the lines, merely to read them. This is pretty much the approach with Dear Loll: A Wartime Marriage in Letters by Rosanna Greenstreet and Matthew Fay, or, perhaps, one might say by Gerard Fay and his wife Alice, ‘Loll’, whose genuine correspondence forms the basis of the charming Dear Loll, playing at Wilton’s Music Hall. Two actors reading from lecterns and coming together not at the end but once in the middle of the play for a brief, symbolic dance which, like the letters, is complemented by the Le Page Ensemble.
In a fine performance, Charlie Hamblett brings Gerard to life, from boyish enthusiasm at joining the army to the mounting trepidation as the day – D Day – nears and he finds himself no longer “playing at war” in training camps but in the real war. Daisy Waterstone plays Loll, bouncy and vivacious when Gerard first goes away, but her chippy brightness gradually fades as the war drags on and Gerard’s future becomes less certain. As an emotional experience, the actors succeed in bringing the people they portray to life and in pulling the audience into their world. In this way, through their performances, they counteract the own goal of the programme note that eliminates the uncertainty and emotion of the play by revealing that Gerard and Loll survived the war and that their marriage ended unhappily.
For all its charm and some funny and sensitive moments, the material from which Dear Loll has been crafted is frankly thin, covering only a relatively short period – the letters start after the declaration of war and end well before VE Day. The music certainly helps to pad out the script but it does much more and, playing tunes made famous by The Inkspots, Glenn Miller and the BBC’s broadcasts to Britain’s war workers as well as original music by David Le Page, the Ensemble becomes an additional character, allowing the parted couple to unite when they are apart.
Though there are a few stumbles in the readings, the simple staging, the actors and the unnamed wardrobe team succeed in conveying the period as well as the loneliness, love and stoicism of separation. There are, however, some technical problems: several lighting changes were mistimed, leaving an actor in darkness when they were supposed to be lit; and Waterstone’s lectern casts a shadow on her dress and its very unfortunate positioning elicited some laughter. Judy Reaves’ direction is also a little unclear at times – as the actors smile at each other frequently, the sense of separation is undermined, especially in the first half; and when a script contains an unfamiliar word – like ‘billet’ – someone should check the pronunciation.
Review by Louis Mazzini
The journalist Rosanna Greenstreet discovered a cardboard box full of thousands of intimate letters between her husband’s grandparents, Gerard and Alice, and they inspired her to write a stage play. Dear Loll brings this candid and compelling correspondence between a young couple torn apart by war to life. Called up to fight in World War II in the summer of 1940, the Manchester Guardian journalist Gerard Fay joined the army as an ordinary soldier while his wife Alice or ‘Loll’ (short for Lollipop) remained in the north of England. There began a fascinating correspondence between the couple recording Gerard’s rise through the ranks, which led to his service on D-Day and subsequent wounding, and Alice’s life on the home front, raising two children.
Full of drama, humour and emotion, the letters are their only means of communication. Writing virtually every day, their correspondence over four years is previously unheard testimony to the experiences of ordinary people in wartime and gives a fascinating insight into how one couple survived, both physically and mentally. They describe the warp and weft of a marriage and the loneliness of separation – a grief that was shared by tens of thousands.
Cast: Daisy Waterstone and Charlie Hamblett
With live onstage music from the Le Page Ensemble
Adapted by Rosanna Greenstreet and Matthew Fay
Director: Judy Reaves
Music arranged by David Le Page
Hambletts Productions present
DEAR LOLL
Wilton’s Music Hall
30 and 31 May 2025
