“There is nothing predictable about the British weather,” says Winston Churchill’s chief meteorologist, the Dalkeith-born Group Captain James Stagg (David Haig), to his American counterpart Colonel Irving P. Krick (Philip Cairns), “that’s why we like to talk about it.” And talk about it they do, until they are red, white and blue in the face, in order to ascertain whether the conditions are conducive for the successful launch of Operation Overlord (the code name for the Allied invasion of Europe during the Second World War) which was originally scheduled for Monday, 5 June.

“Glorious sunshine,” predicts the brash American. “Storm force winds and rain,” the meticulous Scot. A heated impasse which draws the following withering refrain from the right-hand man of President “Christ on the Mountain” Eisenhower (Malcolm Sinclair): “Five foot ten of Stagg, 6 foot of gloom.”

No play or forecast is flawless, but Pressure by David Haig, which premiered to critical acclaim at the Lyceum in 2014 and is two venues into a three-month tour in a John Dove-directed production by the Touring Consortium Theatre Company, comes pretty darn close in that the writing and direction, casting and performances, combine into a perfect storm to tell the fascinating story of an unsung hero whose judgement under pressure minimised casualties and maximised chances of success during the D-Day landings.

Given the meteorological subject matter and terminology (think the shipping forecast told with the twinkling of an eye), you’d be forgiven for thinking that the play would read like an Arthur Montford football commentary: dull, dreich and drab. But nothing could be further from the truth, for both acts, which come in at a combined running time of around two hours and thirty minutes, are tight, tense and thrilling.

Added to which is a healthy dose of heart and humour: the latter in the form of dry one-liners rooted in character and plot, such as Eisenhower’s dismissal of Britain, with its four seasons in a day, as a summer holiday destination, “I wouldn’t want to book in advance”; the former given emotional heft by Stagg’s concern for his pregnant wife who has been rushed into labour (he bats away empty reassurances of “she’ll be fine” with the same tenacity as he dismisses Krick’s “plausible” but “two-dimensional” forecasts) and the doomed love affair between the President and his devoted personal secretary Kay Summersby (Laura Rogers) who is dropped like an aerial bomb the morning after D-Day.

Haig delivers a masterclass in writing and performing; meticulous in both; his gleeful fascination with the ever-changing weather (“a climate of surprises, of twists and turns”), infectious. The relationships he forges with Sinclair’s firm but funny Eisenhower and Rogers’ stiff-upper-lipped Summersby, authentic, deep and subtle. The overriding themes being fate and uncertainty: a long-term forecast like a “long-term economic plan” is nothing but an “informed guess” which as Robert Burns once wrote “gang aft agley”. Not a phrase I would use to describe Pressure which like Stagg’s prediction is right on the money.

Written by David Haig
Directed by John Dove
Set and Costume by Colin Richmond
Lighting Design by Tim Mitchell
Composer and Sound Design by Philip Pinsky 
Peter Callaghan
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