Wartime grit has been in our minds a lot in recent weeks and Terence Rattigan's Forties drama is a timely reminder of the period.

A battered classic, it stutters on to the stage like a shot-up Wellington bomber just making it back to its windswept base.

Rattigan was an RAF air gunner as well as a promising young playwright when he penned Flare Path in 1942.

It encapsulated the spirit of the times, the transient existence of bomber crews grasping brief moments of normality with those they loved before roaring off into the night on another mission.

Middle Ground Theatre Company's production remains faithful to the spirit of the original, an endeavour which has the effect of laying bare all the shrapnel holes in its creaking fabric.

As a museum centrepiece, the play is still a big attraction but, like aeronautics, theatre drama has soared many thousands of feet in the 60 years since this play's inaugural flight.

There are generous opportunities for the nine members of the cast to contribute and full advantage is taken.

Nigel Carrington plays a visiting American film star making a rendezvous at a Lincolnshire hotel with his actress lover, portrayed by Tracey-Anne Liles, who has married the skipper of a bomber, a part played with increasing confidence as the play progresses by Daniel Brown.

So the first barrage balloon goes up. Will she flightily abandon her gallant husband for the Yank?

Former Dr Who Colin Baker is an avuncular chairman of the dramatic proceedings in the hotel's lounge as Squadron Leader Swanson, affectionately known as Gloria.

The bombers take off on an unspecified, hazardous mission. One crashes - does this mean heartache for the women left at the hotel in the ration-book care of the formidable Mrs Oakes?

The proprietress is a pleasing characterisation by Christine Drummond.

Another Wellington fails to return from the mission, leaving Jackie Lye facing the end of her post-war dream of life in Poland as Countess Skriczevinsky with her pilot husband, played by Rupert Baker.

Another question-mark blimp is launched with the news that the count's kite has ditched in the drink. Will we ever see him again?

Rattigan introduces lashings of the indomitable spirit of wartime Britain with the countess's brave resignation, as well as the loyalty of rear gunner Miles Chambers and his wife, played by Tania Mathias.

We know all will end well. Plays of that era tended to do so.

Those to whom the hardships of wartime do not seem so very long ago will enjoy the production for its nostalgia value. Others may feel the play should be quietly parked in a corner of a hangar.

For tickets, call 01903 206206.

Review by Mike Bacon, mike.bacon@theargus.co.uk