The time is 1936, the place is Northern England, a weekend in the country house of the Ashburys. Jane Ashbury dreams of being the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic, from east to west. Her childhood friend, Nora Duckworth, has flight fantasies that are decidedly more eccentric?
The weekend erupts into chaos, as seven characters become more and more entangled with each other; there is a failed sexual betrayal; an outrageous attempt to fly without wings; a mental breakdown prompted by memories of World War I; an ongoing plot to sabotage Jane's plans to fly across the Atlantic; and finally, there is a sZance in which many truths are revealed.
Lyrical, luminous, wonderfully theatrical?And Up They Flew is a ?serious comedy? about the tensions of the 20th century