A Little Green Leaf ****

Modern popular culture is awash with spy stories: James Bond, Jason Bourne, John Le Carre, Ken Follett, William Boyd et al, going back to Eric Ambler. The reality of spy operations is usually far less glamorous: painstaking, dull monitoring, reporting within a static hierarchical structure. But it can still be very dangerous.

Special Operations Executive (SOE) was created during World War II, with the fate of the free world at stake. Their role: espionage, reconnaissance, organising resistance groups and supporting in the Allied invasion of France. Field operatives would be dropped into Nazi-occupied France. They would have been fearful, life expectancy being short, with the threat of incarceration, torture and death being ever-present. The problem facing SOE was that young men in occupied France were highly conspicuous, highly likely to be challenged. Therefore, SOE would turn to more unconventional methods of putting operatives into the field – women.

A Little Green Leaf is predominantly the story of Odette Hallowes and her part in Hitler’s downfall. A French national living in England, she was recruited by SOE and despatched to France, quite a wrench bearing in mind she had young children. She was betrayed, captured, incarcerated, tortured and sentenced to be executed…twice... But Europe in the last throes of the Third Reich had been thrown into chaos and providentially she was picked up at an American checkpoint and liberated.

Hallowes’ extraordinary story is vividly brought to life by Leaf Collective. Kathleen O’Reilly portrays her resilience, humanity and conflicted emotions with adept skill. Will Carr adopts many roles but the one that lingers is Captain Eddie Bonner, struggling to process the scale of the inhumanity he is forced to confront. They are well supported by Ariel Slack. The production skilfully employs puppetry and shadowplay, and once it hits its stride, moves along briskly.

This is a production that shines a light on a relatively unknown fragment of the fight for democracy; perhaps in 2026 it would be as well to remember. The vast scale of the human suffering is juxtaposed with what resilient individuals do to simply survive – in Hallowes’ case, focusing on a little green leaf as a touchstone to the outside world.

D-Day was far from a foregone conclusion: the assistance of SOE contributed to the scales tipping in the Allies’ favour, precipitating the conclusion of the war in Europe and saving many thousands of lives. The bravery displayed by seemingly ordinary people like Odette Hallowes is awe-inspiring.