The man o'war with a startling secret

The Female Warrior; or The Surprising Life And Adventures Of Hannah Snell, Royal Regiment of Fusilers Museum, St John's House, Warwick. May 27 and May 29.

For their latest venture into the unusual, Coventry's always inventive Talking Birds company have turned to one of the oddest military stories of 18th century Britain.

In the summer of 1750, a marine named James Gray, returning to this country after fighting in campaigns against the French in India for two years, revealed to his shipmates his big secret. He was not a he, but a she - Hannah Snell, a much-wounded veteran who'd also had a spell in the army.

Born in Worcester in 1723, Hannah apparently sought the military life in search of her missing husband and was said to have joined the 6th Regiment of Foot in Coventry, marching north to take on Bonnie Prince Charlie's forces in the Jacobite Rebellion of 1745.

This theatrical re-telling of her extraordinary life - she was mother, stage performer and London publican as well as soldier and marine - is staged in the gardens of St John's Museum in Warwick, an entirely appropriate setting as the 6th Foot was an ancestor of the Royal Regiment Of Fusiliers, whose museum it now is.

Pictured: Elinor Coleman as Hannah Snell.

Performances are free, last half an hour and take place on Saturday, May 27 at 1.30pm, 3.30pm and 7.30pm and on Monday, May 29 at 1.30pm and 3.30pm.