Whiskey Tango Foxtrot

It’s 1997 and Rebecca Crookshank is not old enough to vote – but she is old enough to join the Royal Air Force. Today, she’s an actress, and after years of people expressing surprise at her former career, she decided to make a show about it.

It’s true that Crookshank seems an unlikely military pilot; slight and wide-eyed, she conveys the charming naivety of her youthful self – and casts a witty eye over the culture of discipline and hard-drinking she plunged into at 17. She bolshily inhabits the various tough-talking, foul-mothed women she worked for, as well as giving an affectionate portrait of her best friend and “wing-woman”. Projections of grainy home videos and photos add a snooping sense of authenticity.

It’s an effortlessly engaging performance and spending an hour in such good company is no hardship. But Whiskey Tango Foxtrot fails to really probe the darker elements of Crookshank’s experience, which prove considerable.

A low patch, brought on by bereavement, heartbreak and loneliness, proves very low indeed - but is largely dealt with via a surreal hospital hallucination set-piece. The sexism you fear might rears its ugly head is alluded to, but while we grasp the grimness of an initiation ceremony in which 28 blokes manhandle her while wearing only marigolds on their manhoods, any real evocation of the emotional consequences—or critique of the RAF and its look-the-other-way culture—is lacking. Crookshank proves herself a top-flight entertainer, but the show is airy where it could have been incisive.