IT is seventy years since VE Day and yet a veil seems to have fallen over the exploits and relentless courage of the RAF’s bomb crews, the men who risked their lives over and over in the frontlines for King and country.

In his signature evocative, yet mordant and often uncompromising style, Terence Rattigan does not allow his audience to write off a pivotal and perilous episode of the war effort or to consign it to an addendum in the history books.

Flare Path is his tribute to those threatened by oblivion.

Set in 1942 against a backdrop of heartache and quiet bravery, Flare Path follows former actress Patricia, the wife of RAF pilot Teddy, whose marriage is tested to the limits by the surprise arrival of her lover and Hollywood idol Peter Kyle. Resolved at first to leave her husband for good, she becomes conflicted after a treacherous mission over Germany brings home the magnitude of the war and its cruel toll on those fighting the enemy and the wives waiting for their return.

It takes a cast-iron troupe to convey Rattigan’s hard truths and the raw and ever-changing emotions sweeping his complex characters. Thankfully the cast brilliantly delivered.

Olivia Hallinan’s sensitive portrayal of the undaunted Patricia, whose rigid persona soon falls away to reveal glimpses of fragility, is truly magnetic.

Despite stand-out performances from Leon Ockenden as Peter Kyle and Alastair Whatley as Teddy, Siobhan O’Kelly simply stole the show as the deeply caring and always thoughtful Countess Skriczevinsky. From a ditsy yet well-meaning bystander, she grows into a beacon of strength holding the precarious group together in shaky times.

Rattigan’s multi-layered play seamlessly overlays his own experience as a tail gunner during World War II and opens a poignant and memorable window into the lives of pilots’ wives and sweethearts – lives lived on the sidelines.

Unpredictable, tense and brimming with surprising humour Flare Path is as relevant today as it ever was.

Flare Path runs at the Theatre Royal Bath until Saturday, September 12.