Dragon Review: Spitfire Girls – Yvonne Arnaud Theatre

Published on: 25 Mar, 2026
Updated on: 25 Mar, 2026

Learning to fly: Katriona Brown as Bett, with fellow ATA-girls Dotty (Hannah Morrison) and Joy (Kirsty Cox).

By Alice Fowler

‘It’s built for us, isn’t it? The Spitfire. Built for women.’ So declares Dotty (Hannah Morrison), the younger of two sisters at the heart of Spitfire Girls, on show at the Yvonne Arnaud Theatre this week.

The leitmotif of the Spitfire, the famous World War Two fighter plane, runs through the production, from the RAF roundel design on the aircraft’s wing, which adorns the stage floor, to the Spitfire pub, where we meet elder sister Bett as the play begins.

“Chin up, wings out, fly on”: Hannah Morrison as Dotty.

On New Year’s Eve 1959, Bett – now a morose pub landlady – thinks back to her years as an ‘ATA-girl’: part of the Air Transport Auxiliary which moved aircraft between factories, maintenance units and airfields, in support of the RAF.

The play is the creation of Katherine Senior, who both wrote the script and, on the night I watched, played the role of Bett, in this Tilted Wig and Mayflower Southampton production, directed by Sean Aydon and designed by Sarah Beaton. (On Friday and Saturday this week, Bett will be played by Katriona Brown).

One in eight of ATA’s pilots were women, and thanks to Senior’s research – conducted over a decade – the stories of the real-life ATA-girls shine through her script.

The action of the play soon moves back to 1943, the year the sisters defy their father – who wants his daughters to stay and work on the family pig farm – by applying to join the ATA. This date is significant in the ATA’s wider history as the year women pilots were awarded equal pay to their male colleagues: highly unusual for the time.

Keep on smiling: ATA-girls Bett, Dotty and Joy.

As the play progresses, we see the sisters – based at the Hamble Ferry Pool near Southampton – become accomplished pilots, flying aircraft of all types, from de Havilland Tiger Moths to Fairey Barracudas and Dotty’s beloved Spitfires.

There is romance as well, with RAF pilot Tom (an excellent Paul Brown), but it is the sisters’ relationship that propels the action forward. Bett is protective of her younger sister, while Dotty, vibrant and headstrong, loves taking to the open skies. Jack Hulland convinces as the sisters’ father, while Kirsty Cox also excels as their commanding officer, striving to show the women’s work is as valuable as that of their male counterparts.

The transportation of aircraft is hard to depict on stage, but the production succeeds with a balletic sequence (developed in conjunction with the National Theatre) in which Dotty – with arms outstretched, becoming an aeroplane herself – is lifted around the stage.

Blue skies: Hannah Morrison as Dotty is transported around the stage.

The play is rich in atmosphere, with many war-time tropes addressed, from the women releasing tension in a drunken bar scene, to the poignancy of relationships formed in uncertain times. Story was in shorter supply, so the production’s pace slowed at times. However, the Yvonne Arnaud’s first night audience was appreciative.

The ATA pilots’ comradely salutation, ‘Blue skies’, is scattered liberally through the play. ‘Blue skies,’ then, to all who go to watch.

Spitfire Girls runs at the Yvonne Arnaud Theatre until March 28. See www.yvonne-arnaud.co.uk. Box office tel. 01483 440000.