Southwark Playhouse have created a convincing set the length of the room with the audience either side.  The majority of the stage is open allowing the cast to bring on chairs as are needed for different scenes, which works well. The cast is just five with one of them, Laurence Saunders  playing Colonel Buckmaster and in France, a Resistance worker, the Professor.    

The play follows this courageous woman through her training to France where she reconciles her pacifism to fighting against the Germans.  Parallel scenes feature a captured German Keiffer (Chris Porter) trading with Vera Atkins.  Later scenes show Keiffer having captured Noor in France and taking her to Germany.  The citation makes it clear that Noor Khan steadfastly refused to disclose who she worked with in Paris. 

The performances are thoroughly convincing.  Annice Boparai is on stage almost all of the time and is captivating as Noor who has also left us her stories for children.  Caroline Faber is thoroughly professional but I disliked Colonel  Buckmaster’s bullying training exercises. Keiffer is the one we have to hate with his deception and games playing.  Ellie Turner plays a French woman Renée who Noor stays with.  The ending is high tragedy for this brave woman. 

I started watching the play with a sense of uneasiness about how the story could extend to 1 hour 45 minutes, but it soon absorbed me into the narrative and it ended all too quickly. At this time of remembrance, it is often too easy to forget the different nations and women involved in the brutal conflict. This play does justice to just one heroine who time might have forgotten; I can recommend it.