A film about bomb disposal crews working during the Blitz has been delayed, after a real World War Two bomb was discovered at the site of the screening in Coventry.
It Takes a City is a film of a play that was staged in the ruins of Coventry Cathedral in 2025, and was due to be screened on Tuesday night by the theatre group Talking Birds at the Daimler Powerhouse arts complex.
But a spanner was thrown in the works when workmen found an unexploded bomb on site of the complex on Tuesday afternoon at Sandy Lane Business Park, Radford.
A 100-metre cordon was put in place, resulting in 96 homes being evacuated while authorities conducted a safe and controlled detonation of the device’s fuse, and removed the bomb.
The play is about bomb disposal crews from two different centuries- one in 1940 in Chapel Street, and the other in 2008 near the Belgrade Theatre in the city centre.
Sadly, when the bomb disposal crew were unloading the bomb from Chapel Street in 1940, the bomb exploded, killing all seven crew members.
Derek Nisbet, co-director of Talking Birds, said the possibility of discovering an unexploded bomb was “something that could happen” because the Daimler factory was “almost completely destroyed” during the WWII.
Speaking about the play, he told the BBC: “It commemorates the sad loss of the seven men on Whitley common in 1940 but also marks the work that still continues, as these bombs are found and uncovered.”
Talking Birds intends to re-stage the play at The Nest, their base at the Daimler Powerhouse in two weeks.
It comes after over 1,000 homes and some 1,500 people in Plymouth were evacuated following the discovery of an unexploded bomb at a building site.
The discovery in Flamborough Road, Southway, led to a 400-metre cordon, as military experts concluded the device could not be safely moved, and had to be detonated in situ on 1 May.
The authority stated that no significant damage had been identified in the surrounding area, including nearby buildings, allowing the cordon to be lifted and residents to return.
The discovery was the second in Plymouth this year, with the first in January when a 50kg German WWII bomb was found on a building site in the city’s Millbay area.
Assistant chief constable Nikki Leaper, from Devon and Cornwall Police, said: “Safety was our priority, and we wanted it to be safe, we cannot get complacent.”
