Amy Johnson: Last Flight Out – Ropery Hall, Barton-upon-Humber

Writer/Performer: Jenny Lockyer

Director: Vern Griffiths

Amy Johnson was a heroine of the days when flying was all about breaking down barriers, establishing records. She was the first woman to fly to Australia; with her husband Jim Mollison she was half of the most exciting aviation couple of the 1930s. She even had a popular song written about her: “Wonderful Amy” – and she was wonderful, diversifying her interests and impressing all who knew her with her unlimited enthusiasm for flying.

And she came from Hull which made Barton-upon-Humber, in the shade of the Humber Bridge, the ideal place to pick up the Flying High tour which uses an hour-long play in association with workshops, question and answer sessions and school workshops to explore the theme of aspiration which was key to Amy Johnson’s success. Ropery Hall, part of the lengthy Ropewalk Centre – galleries and a cafe – also proved ideal, a 120-seater unraked auditorium with a comfortably appointed lobby and bar.

Vern Griffiths’ direction keeps everything as simple as possible, with an easel and chair – later to join together to make a damaged aeroplane – the extent of the stage props. Jenny Lockyer, in her writing and acting, gives a vivid impressionistic impression of Amy, mostly in her early days building up to the Australia flight.

Lockyer starts off by zooming round the hall making aircraft noises, arms outstretched like a kid at play – appropriate enough, since many of the blackout scenes feature the voice of Jason, her Gypsy Moth in which she flew to Australia. The scenes are very often unconnected, but a constant theme is her need to understand how a plane works, here illustrated in the words of Jack the mechanic and the amusingly plummy Major who gradually accepts that she has the know-how. In real life Johnson became the first woman to hold an engineer’s licence.

One of Lockyer’s strengths is giving us a one-sided conversation. Among the neatest is her pleading with the lord who together with her father was her main sponsor: earnest determination to achieve the apparently impossible.

In 1941 Amy Johnson was working for the Air Transport Auxiliary, delivering planes to R.A.F. bases, when, after a still-mysterious accident, she died, having bailed out at Herne Bay. The title suggests that this is the theme of the play, but it’s only at the end that we focus on the freedom of the skies as she sets out on her last flight.

Amy Johnson: Last Flight Outis relatively unassuming – one wonders if Lockyer is considering a longer piece on the subject – but it evocatively summons up the determination, the humour and the can-do aspirations of Amy Johnson.

Touring Great Britain.