Bomb disposal film screening postponed after real WWII bomb found

The film, about bomb squads working during the Blitz, has been postponed after a real Second World War bomb was found at a screening site in Coventry.

It Takes a City is a film of a play that was staged in the ruins of Coventry Cathedral in 2025 and will be shown by the Talking Birds theater group at the Daimler Powerhouse arts complex on Tuesday night.

But a spanner was thrown into the works at Sandy Lane Business Park in Radford on Tuesday afternoon when workers found an unexploded bomb on the site of the complex.

While 96 houses were evacuated by pulling a 100-meter cordon, the authorities detonated the fuse of the device in a safe and controlled manner and removed the bomb.

The play follows bomb squads in two different centuries, one on Chapel Street in 1940 and the other near the Belgrade Theater in the city center in 2008.

Unfortunately, in 1940, as the bomb squad was unloading the bomb from Chapel Street, the bomb exploded, killing all seven crew members.

Derek Nisbet, co-director of Talking Birds, said the possibility of finding an unexploded bomb was “something that could happen” as the Daimler factory was “almost completely destroyed” during the Second World War.

Commenting on the play, he told the BBC: “It commemorates the sad loss of seven men on Whitley Common in 1940 but also points to the work that is still going on as these bombs are found and uncovered.”

Talking Birds plans to re-stage the play at The Nest, its base at the Daimler Powerhouse, in two weeks.

It comes after more than 1,000 homes and nearly 1,500 people were evacuated after an unexploded bomb was found at a construction site in Plymouth.

The discovery on Flamborough Road in Southway led to a 400-metre cordon, with military experts concluding that the device could not be moved safely and had to be detonated on site on May 1.

No significant damage was detected to the surrounding area, including nearby buildings, allowing the cordon to be lifted and residents to return, the official said.

This discovery was the second at Plymouth this year; The first was in January when a 50kg German Second World War bomb was found at a construction site in the Millbay area of ​​the city.

Assistant chief constable Nikki Leaper, of Devon and Cornwall Police, said: “Safety was our priority and we wanted it to be safe, we cannot stand by.”