Film Review: Lancaster

Thursley History Society hosted an evening showing of Lancaster: Above and Beyond in February 2026. The review below first appeared in the Parish Magazine in April 2026.

To the village hall, for the Thursley History  Society’s very special showing of Lancaster, the 2022 documentary about the Avro Lancaster, the iconic British plane.  It proved to be a fascinating evening, and a captivating film.  We were incredibly lucky, too, to have one of the film’s directors, and local man, David Fairhead, with us for a Q&A afterwards.  David described himself as both film maker, and aviation enthusiast, and that combination of passions was very obvious – the film was full of stunning ariel footage of a surviving plane, cut alongside tremendously poignant and affecting first-hand accounts from some thirty surviving members of Bomber Command, while Charles Dance’s narration was informative and fascinating. 

The vast Lancaster bomber first saw service in 1942, and played a decisive, even pivotal role in the war.  From flying over 156,000 sorties over enemy territory in night raids, through the Dambusters raids where Barnes Wallis’s bouncing bombs decimated the Ruhr Valley dams that were powering the German weapons and munitions factories, to the almost obliteration of Dresden as the conflict drew to a close, the impact of the plane on the course of the war cannot be underestimated.  Nor can the human cost – more than 55,000 men out of a total of 125,000 wartime members of Bomber Command were killed.  Another 8,403 were wounded, while 9,838 became prisoners of war.  It felt like a privilege to hear the pin sharp recollection of the survivors David had quite brilliantly interviewed for the film, all in their nineties.  And a further privilege to hear David speak afterwards. 

Spitfire was the first of a trilogy of films, of which Lancaster was the second.  David and his partner are finishing Mosquito next.  I think the History Society should start a petition for a world premiere  of that one in the village hall.

Lizzie Young