A THEATRE production spotlighting the role of women on Britain’s canal network during the Second World War is set to create waves locally.

Alarum Theatre is bringing its acclaimed show, Idle Women of the Wartime Waterways, to the district.

The performance will be given aboard working heritage boat Kennet, the Leeds and Liverpool Canal Society’s award-winning floating interactive museum and educational resource which has proved a massive hit with Keighley-district schoolchildren and others.

It will be moored outside the Five Rise Locks Cafe in Bingley for the shows, which are being staged at 2pm and 7pm next Friday, July 6.

The production is a double-bill featuring poems and songs by Heather Wastie and a solo play by Kate Saffin.

It centres around how a shortage of crews to keep working boats operating during the war created a new breed of boaters.

Young women, later nicknamed the ‘idle women’, took on the challenge of managing 72ft narrow boats and 55 tons of cargo.

The production is being staged in conjunction with the Leeds and Liverpool Canal Society.

A spokesman said: “This summer the theatre group is following the route worked by a small group of lesser-known women, locally called Judies, from Liverpool to Leeds.

“One of these was a young Nancy Ridgway, who saw a newspaper advert for ‘women to be going to work on the barges’ and thought ‘that’ll do me, that’s just the job’ and applied immediately!

“There’s lots of humour as well as historical accuracy in the show, which finishes with some gentle audience participation.”

The show has been created using first-hand accounts, diaries, archive material and audio interviews.

Tickets are £10, plus a £1.37 booking fee. Light refreshments are included.

Seating on-board Kennet is restricted to 30, so ticket availability is limited.

For more details and to book, visit eventbrite.co.uk/e/idle-women-of-the-wartime-waterways-kennet-matinee-tickets-47192290411 or eventbrite.co.uk/e/copy-of-idle-women-of-the-wartime-waterways-kennet-evening-tickets-47192379678.