Wordy, overwritten flop – perfect for the BBC: Noor, at Southwark Playhouse, reviewed

A heroic Asian woman parachutes into occupied France to work for the resistance and help overthrow the Nazis. This sounds like a fictional yarn but the story of Noor Inayat Khan is true. Her family were well-educated Sufi Muslims, who counted Gandhi among their friends, and they raised Noor as a pacifist intellectual who spoke several languages. And that’s the first oddity of the show. We aren’t told what drives Noor to side with Britain in a war that violates her family principles. And because we don’t know why she’s fighting, we’re bound to lose interest in her progress.

Other puzzles emerge. She’s engaged to be married but we learn nothing about her fiancé. In Britain her commanding officer reveals that undercover wireless operators in France usually survive no more than six weeks without being executed by the Gestapo.