Somewhere In England: The Guardian

When the Eighth Air Force arrived in East Anglia from America in 1942 it included black recruits who had joined up, encouraged by the suggestion that aiding the war effort would smooth the path to equality in the US.

The reality proved rather different. Racism and segregation was rife in the military; black recruits were often relegated to menial jobs, whatever their educational background, and were not allowed to mix with white airmen. But many locals and land girls welcomed all GIs, whatever the colour of their skin. That is until the Women's Voluntary Service discouraged girls from socialising with black GIs, and the issue of mixed race babies was raised in parliament.

The relationship between a black GI, Joe (Nathanael Campbell), and land girl Viv (Georgia Brown), is explored with a beady eye and a lack of romanticism in Polly Wiseman's play for Eastern Angles. This Romeo and Juliet in the Fens has some improbabilities in timeline and plot, is sometimes clunky, and only gathers momentum and tension in the second half.

But it is an excellent take on how love doesn't always conquer all, especially the fear of being socially ostracised. Racist stereotypes of black men as sexual predators followed the Americans to East Anglia, while the war office, run by an elite who believed in people knowing their places, put victory above black lives if it suited them.

It would be nice to have had a more detailed examination - beyond nylons and Hershey bars - of the impact of the arrival of the Americans on the area, and some of the characters are underdeveloped, in particular the teenager Ginny (Grace Osborn), whose mixture of cleverness and emotional naivety doesn't quite ring true. But it made for an enjoyable evening, and one that reminds us that the black GIs who fought tirelessly against fascism in Europe were often subject to racism while they did it.

Lyn Gardner