Tender, tragic and beautifully poignant, set against the backdrop of feats of heroism both epic and ordinary, here is a novel of relationships that offers up subtle surprises and twists. Their lives, and their secrets connect in sometimes startling ways. Duncan, an apparent innocent, has had his own demons to fight during the war. Viv, glamour girl, is stubbornly, even foolishly loyal, to her soldier lover. Helen, clever, sweet, much-loved, harbours a painful secret. Kay, who drove an ambulance during the war and lived life at full throttle, now dresses in mannish clothes and wanders the streets with a restless hunger, searching. This is the story of four Londoners – three women and a young man with a past, drawn with absolute truth and intimacy. Moving back through the 1940s, through air raids, blacked out streets, illicit liaisons, sexual adventure, to end with its beginning in 1941, The Night Watch is the work of a truly brilliant and compelling storyteller.

Then touring.This is an alternate cover edition for ISBN 9781594482304. But where Waters’ story on the page has a depth of character and feeling, it does not feel nearly as textured or alive on stage.Īt Yvonne Arnaud theatre, Guildford, until 28 September. Waters’ subtler themes – of the psychic pain of surviving war and those strains in society intent on denying this pain – are touched upon, too. Helen (Florence Roberts) and Julia (Izabella Urbanowicz) perform their parts as betraying lovers compellingly and with what seems like guilt-free exhilaration. The ironic sense of growing freedoms for women in this time of terror is well captured and we see independent lives being forged as the bombs drop. Pauses between lines are not weighted with enough feeling, so we remain underinvested in the characters until the second part when the dialogue is more kinetic, and the emotional drama gathers ground.

The first half – filled with conversations between characters at a table or on the factory floor – lags in pace and is static in direction. Yet in dramatic terms the play remains earthbound, slow and stilted with a strangely distancing effect that stops it from taking off and coming to life. There is authenticity and imagination on David Woodhead’s stage with its backdrop of terraced houses foregrounded by rubble. Florence Roberts as Helen and Phoebe Pryce as Kay.

The night watch by sarah waters