When Flo, a feisty 70-something, learns that the hospital she trained at during World War Two is being demolished, she decides to take one last look – and to stop the bulldozers in their tracks. Her illicit visit becomes a personal celebration of friendship, courage, adventure and romance. But is what Flo remembers really the truth, or is history ready to be rewritten?

Nursing Lives is a love story set in the early 1980s of Margaret Thatcher’s Britain and takes us back to the hard-working, heart-breaking, swing-dancing world of the country’s wartime hospitals.

The thing is, the play does all this without a single word being spoken or a facial expression from the actors being observed. Like all Vamos Theatre productions, Nursing Lives is completely wordless and the actors all wear full masks.

“We learn Flo’s story as she tells it to one of the demolition men, Pete,“ explains actor and Vamos’ tour manager Richard Fletcher, who plays Pete and also Flo’s husband.

But how is such a detailed story with complex themes and different time settings conveyed through unmoving, plastic masks?

“I’ve trained in physical theatre and I thought full mask work was going to be really big and physical and over the top,“ admits Richard, who joined the company last year when it put on the play Finding Joy, “but really you have to be so detailed. Every single movement, every physical gesture down to the tiniest movement of a little finger is choreographed, otherwise the audience won’t be able to read it.“

The actors’ carefully detailed movements and masterful body language are complemented by a strong visual set, lots of props and an original soundtrack.

“Full mask theatre is so powerful,“ says Richard. “Everything’s put on a plate for you when you’ve got words in a play – take the words away and it really makes the audience invest, they’re doing the lines for themselves as they watch the show.“

Nursing Lives is both funny and poignant and Richard says audiences are in tears by the end because they’ve been so much a part of the storytelling process.

The masks do have a downside, however.

“They’re horrible to wear,“ Richard laughs, “claustrophobic, sweaty – you get a spotty face, it’s totally unglamorous! And you’ve got no peripheral vision whatsoever so at the beginning of the run there’s a lot of banging into furniture.

“But I’ve totally fallen in love with full mask theatre, I can’t imagine doing straight theatre again.“