Written in the midst of wartime and highly influenced by Terence Rattigan’s own experiences as a tailgunner during World War Two, Flare Path offers a witty yet profound take on the unerring British wartime spirit. In a small Lincolnshire hotel, neighboring the local RAF airbase, an array of pilots and their crews gather each night following harrowing air raids. On this night, several of them are joined by their wives, who must now send their husbands off into the skies. Patricia Graham has come to see her husband Teddy, but she is also joined by her former lover who is now very much in her present. As she faces the dilemma of which man to choose, ex-barmaid Dolly keeps an upbeat, positive exterior while waiting anxiously at the window to track the journey of her Polish pilot husband, Count Skricevinsky. As the residents of the hotel gather in the aftermath of a particularly dangerous nighttime raid over the Rhineland, will all the resident crew make it back in one piece?
Flare Path guide sections
