Postcards to the Moon, a romantic, funny and very touching portrait of life during the early 1940s featuring readings of wartime letters between Oscar-nominated actress Celia Johnson (Brief Encounter) and her explorer and writer husband Peter Fleming (brother of James Bond creator Ian Fleming) comes to Malvern Theatres on Saturday, May 19.

Peter Fleming was posted to India and the Far East during the war ‘as far away as the moon’ working for Military Intelligence.

The letters read by their daughter Lucy Fleming (Miranda in The Archers, Survivors) and her husband Simon Williams (Justin in The Archers, EastEnders, Upstairs Downstairs) are full of love and warmth and we get an insight into a young mother’s life whose husband has gone to war. We hear how Celia coped with a large isolated house packed with evacuated children, rationing, learning to drive a tractor, becoming an auxiliary police woman in Henley-on-Thames, and holidays in Cornwall trying to surf.

And there are lots of behind-the-scenes stories too. Throughout this time Celia was accepting acting jobs working with David Lean, Noel Coward, making propaganda films, and ultimately in 1945 starring in the classic film Brief Encounter.

October 2nd 1944

I had lunch with Mr Coward who read me his new film that he wants me to be in. There is no getting away from the fact that it is a very good part and one I should like to play….It’s about a woman, married and with two children who meets by chance a man in a railway waiting room and they fall in love…… And It’s All No Good.

‘...this intimate and simply spellbinding performance.....revealing an abundance of love and affection between ordinary people caught in extraordinary times.... a theatrical gem’. British Theatre Guide, March 2017.

Letters to the Moon will be at Malvern Theatres on Saturday, May 19 at 7.45pm. To book, call the box office on 01684 892277 or visit malvern-theatres.co.uk