Stage-to-screen review: Grounded

I didn't so much miss Deafinitely Theatre's revival of Grounded when it played at Park Theatre as actively choose not to see it: Not out of any dislike for the company, but because it was only two years since I'd seen the UK premiere of George Brant's monologue, and I knew there was no chance I could realistically watch another version without comparing it to Lucy Ellinson's extraordinary performance. Even another five years down the line it's hard to feel entirely unbiased towards Paula Garfield's production, despite it inevitably having its own identity because it makes the one-woman show a two-hander, or perhaps two one-woman shows happening concurrently: As part of Deafinitely's aim to produce shows that can be enjoyed together by D/deaf and hearing audiences, Nadia Nadarajah performs The Pilot's lines in BSL, while Charmaine Wombwell provides the English language version.

Theatre review: Grounded

A female fighter pilot flying missions in Iraq and Afghanistan is an interesting subject matter in itself, but it's just the starting point for George Brant's intense monologue Grounded. The Pilot (Lucy Ellinson) is at the top of her game, and in attitude as well as skill she's one of the guys. Back in the US on leave, she finally meets a man who's not intimidated by what she does, and their love story leads to marriage and pregnancy. But the latter isn't compatible with flying jets in a war, and when she returns from maternity leave the Pilot ends up doing the same job in a very different way: Her new plane is a remote-controlled drone, and while it surveys Afghanistan she's in a different desert, doing 12-hour shifts in a trailer outside Las Vegas, and at the end of the day she can go home to her family.