The Debutantes

It’s 1940. The Nazis are on the march. Hitler turns his gaze on Britain. Meanwhile, British intelligence authorities are taking a quietly radical decision. In top secret, they recruit a new kind of team to crack Nazi codes – young, diverse, entirely female. THE DEBUTANTES tracks the meteoric rise and quiet erasure of the women of Bletchley Park, seen through the eyes of teenager Mavis Lever. When her brother is conscripted, she’s desperate to help the war effort, even though she has no idea what one person can do. But when she attempts to volunteer as a nurse, the interviewer notices that she speaks German and invites her to sit a special exam. That night, she’s given a one-way train ticket and told to pack a bag. Her destination: a small country village called Bletchley. It turns out that this village is home to the Allies’ codebreaking hub, Bletchley Park. There, she’s met by an eccentric old classical scholar – and expert cryptographer – called Dilly. Dilly explains that he’s recruiting a new team to crack the Axis codes and liberate Europe; like the characters in Alice in Wonderland (a shared favourite), they need to teach themselves to think differently. Mavis eventually accepts his offer, and meets the rest of the all-female team… only to discover that their male counterparts have derisively nicknamed them the Debs, short for Debutantes. The implication: they’re little more than glamorous newcomers, totally out of their depth. However, as they work together on cracking Enigma, the ice thaws. Mavis likes her team, likes Dilly, even likes some of her male colleagues – not least the surly, intelligent Keith. Bletchley Park grows to seem like a kind of Wonderland: a topsy-turvy place where a teenage girl can win universal respect, a far cry from the expectations of home. But Mavis will learn that Wonderland is not real life. Keith, racked by survivor’s guilt, will leave Bletchley to go and fight. Dilly, the mastermind of the whole project, will die of illness. And it will dawn on her – and the rest of the Debutantes – that when the war is over, they’ll be sent back to their old lives and forbidden to breathe a word about their experiences. What’s harder: winning the war or winning the peace? An original two-act musical, THE DEBUTANTES is a semi-fictionalised historical drama drawing on oral histories, the Bletchley Park archives and the authors’ interviews with Mavis’s family. We’ve developed and showcased the piece at the Johnny Mercer Songwriters Project, Leeds Conservatoire and Manhattan School of Music. It’s the first musical to be supported by the relaunched Manhattan Musical Theatre Lab, and two of the songs have been finalists for the Stiles & Drewe Best New Song Prize. The cast size is flexible but no smaller than eight. The score takes inspiration from intimate folk songs and epic film soundtracks alike, and we would love one day to take it to the West End.