Review: Bessie at Midnight, Alone (Blue Masque Theatre Company, GM Fringe)

Friday 15 July 2022
Salford Arts Theatre

The Greater Manchester Fringe is on throughout the month of July at various venues around Greater Manchester. And, once again, I’m going to be reviewing a selection of the productions on offer for this blog, and also for The Festival Show on North Manchester FM.

On Friday 15th July, I was at the Salford Arts Theatre to review Bessie at Midnight, Alone, a performance by Blue Masque Theatre Company. The radio version of this review will be going out on The Festival Show on Friday 22nd July, but here’s the blog version…

Bessie at Midnight, Alone is a new production from Blue Masque Theatre Company. Written by Derek Martin and directed by Rhonwen McCormack, the play is a one-act (sort of!) monologue featuring the titular Bessie… well, at midnight and alone.

Bessie is a prostitute, and she is waiting in an isolated patch of woodland for one of her clients to arrive. As she waits, she tells her story to the audience in a roundabout, meandering narrative, punctuated by the ominous sounds of rustling undergrowth and interrupted by Bessie calling out to whoever it is who is watching her. Her story takes in her life as a prostitute, and a couple of her regular clients (The Colonel and Merrie Andrew) with whom she’s had long-standing business arrangements. Bessie also talks about her mother, and the way she was introduced to the sex trade as a child, and about a young rival who goes by the name Maria Bella Amorosa, despite not actually being Italian.

Bessie, played by Janelle Thompson, appears on stage with just a lantern in one hand and a blanket in the other. She is confident and assured, despite the darkness and foreboding noises coming from the bushes. She is waiting for Merrie Andrew, a young man who – we will learn later in the play’s first half – is somewhat intellectually challenged.

The first striking thing about the character of Bessie is her costume. Designed by Zoey Barnes, Bessie’s outfit sets the scene for how the play will unfold. While undoubtedly conjuring the image of a Victorian ‘harlot’, Bessie’s outfit is unfinished and curiously anachronistic. An electric blue bustier is paired with a hooped underskirt cage (but no petticoat or overskirt) through which fishnet stockings are visible. This costuming creates a very particular atmosphere and tone, without being easily attached to specific historic circumstance – and this approach will define the play as a whole.

Although a lot of Bessie at Midnight, Alone feels as though it is set in particular time – specifically, the late Victorian period – this is effected through touching on certain stereotypical images of the ‘harlot’ from popular culture, rather than directly offering historical context. On a closer watch, much of the play works to deny a Victorian setting rather than affirm it – ‘Merrie Andrew’ feels like a character from an earlier time, and some of Bessie’s language (e.g. referring to nuns as having a ‘hotline to God’) feels far more modern. Musical cues, too, unsettle our notion of a clear setting, with some parts of Bessie’s monologue being accompanied by a varied soundtrack that takes in styles from the medieval to the modern.

Now, I’ve said that Bessie at Midnight, Alone is a monologue, and it is – technically. But this term perhaps doesn’t do justice to the storytelling techniques at work here. While much of the narrative is delivered by Bessie ‘telling her story’ to the audience, she breaks off at times to perform short sketches to illustrate scenes from her life.

It’s in these sketches that Thompson’s skill as a performer really shines. As Bessie acts out the roles of Merrie Andrew, The Colonel, her mother and – later – a police officer and a nun, Thompson embodies these characters, adopting new voices, mannerisms and physical performance to bring the characters to life on stage. Thompson doesn’t slip, either, making each persona as ‘real’ as Bessie herself. Interestingly, the only significant character who doesn’t ‘appear’ on stage is Maria Bella Amorosa, whose interactions with Bessie are only ever narrated and not performed. Without giving any spoilers – though, as Bessie herself notes in the second half of the play, some audience members may guess something important before it is revealed (I’ll admit that I did!) – this decision is, in fact, a storytelling technique in itself, and one that works very well.

At the beginning of this review, I referred to Bessie at Midnight, Alone as a one-act play. This is technically true, as there is no interval and the performer doesn’t leave the stage throughout. However, it’s also technically not true, as the narrative and performance is split into two distinct sections, which are separated by a brief blackout and an interval of time.

The play’s first half takes place in the woods where Bessie is waiting, alone, for Merrie Andrew. In this section, she recounts various events in her life that have led her to that place at that moment, often boldly asserting her contentment in her choice of career (though this is tempered by several suggestions that it was far from a ‘choice’ – Bessie does acknowledge earlier aspirations to be an actor or a nun, from which she was steered by her mother, and to marry The Colonel, from which she was steered by… well… The Colonel). That’s not to say there aren't indications of an underlying dissatisfaction, or even unhappiness. I found some of the more comical set pieces – for instance, the Merrie Andrew scenes – unsettling in their evocation of a woman whose entire adult life has revolved around being used for the pleasure of others. ‘You’re not like the others’ quickly gives way to ‘You let me do anything’, and Thompson skilfully lets a subtle hollowness ring through the comedic lines.

This first half builds to a climax as the noise from the bushes builds to a moment of confrontation. The lights drop, and then we rejoin Bessie a number of hours later. The play’s second half then takes a different direction, with the protagonist more reflective and less content with her life. There are more questions in the second act – some of which are directly posed by Bessie, and some of which might linger in the minds of the audience.

In some respects, the play’s second half is less focused, and its narrative ‘shape’ is less distinct. There are moments of repetition, and Bessie’s assured narrative of the first half gives way to a more fragmented (often unclear) storyline. For me, this change of direction worked well. The clarity and confidence of the first half gives way to vulnerability and fear, picking up on some of the more unsettling undercurrents in Bessie’s earlier narration and allowing the depth and complexity of the character to develop.

I do wonder, though, whether this transition would have been clearer had the play been more definitively split into two acts. A short interval after the climactic blackout might help to keep the audience on a surer footing.

Overall, though, I enjoyed Bessie at Midnight, Alone. Perhaps it’s a mark of my own personal taste, but I found the vagueness of time and place, along with the circuitous shape of Bessie’s story, very compelling. I do enjoy uncertainty! However, these features can only work with an assured and engaging performance, and Thompson certainly offered us that. If you get chance to see Blue Masque Theatre’s production of Bessie at Midnight, Alone at another festival this year, this one’s a recommendation from me.

Bessie at Midnight, Alone was on at the Salford Arts Theatre on 14th-16th July, as part of the Greater Manchester Fringe. For the full programme of Greater Manchester Fringe shows on this year, please visit the festival website.

Review: Pill (Blue Balloon Theatre, GM Fringe)

Friday 1st July 2022
Salford Arts Theatre

The Greater Manchester Fringe is back for another year. The festival started on 1st July, and runs throughout the month at various venues around Greater Manchester. And, once again, I’m going to be reviewing a selection of the productions on offer for this blog, and also for The Festival Show on North Manchester FM.

Like last year, my festival started at the Salford Arts Theatre (which you might remember from previous years is one of my favourite venues). On Friday 1st July, I was there to review Pill, a theatre performance from Blue Balloon Theatre. The radio version of this review will be going out on The Festival Show on Friday 8th July, but here’s the blog version…

Pill is written and performed by Rebecca Phythian. It’s an autobiographical one-act play, told through monologues and physical performance by Phythian, who is joined on stage by Adam Martyn who takes on the dual roles of Doctor and Boyfriend. After the performance, there was a Q&A with Phythian and Martyn as well.

The ‘pill’ of the play’s title is the contraceptive pill, and the play explores Phythian’s experiences, after being prescribed the combined pill at nineteen, of side effects that damaged her mental and physical health, as well as the difficulties she faced when trying to get help and support for these.

In her expository monologues, Phythian gives a potted account of how she came to be prescribed oral contraception and how quickly she started to experience side effects. It’s tempting to say here that she gives an account of how she chose to be on oral contraception, as technically this is a medication of choice. However, as the play makes clear from the start, this is – particularly for young women – not always an informed choice. The combined factors of pressure from a boyfriend and lack of clear guidance on side effects of the pill are stated bluntly in the early part of the play. Phythian’s matter-of-fact delivery of this encourages members of the audience (many of whom will have been in the same position) to relate.

While there is a little bit of background given as to the history and pharmacology of the pill, this is only offered as context. The real meat of the performance lies in Phythian’s re-enactment of the spiralling descent into depression and reduced libido, and fear of high blood pressure, weight gain and blood clots.

The standout scene that encapsulates this focus comes in the middle of the play. Martyn plays the Doctor, sitting behind a desk and laptop. Phythian plays herself, re-enacting an appointment with her GP in which she asked for help or advice with the side effects she was experiencing. The Doctor responds only to questions about which brand of combined pill she is taking, and whether she should be prescribed a different brand. The issue of the depression Phythian is experiencing is only addressed in a cursory fashion, with a refusal to prescribe anti-depressants as they’re deemed ‘unnecessary’ and a request that she continues the counselling.

But the scene is then replayed – this time, Phythian’s body language and demeanour is different, more visibly anxious and with a creeping sense of desperation. Martyn’s performance remains the same, his responses repeated word-for-word and his body language unchanged.

And then the scene is replayed – again and again – with Phythian becoming more desperate, angry at times, beseeching at others. Her words and tone change over the repetitions, like a crescendo of frustration at not being listened to. Martyn does not change, remaining impassive and unmoved by the increasingly worrying descriptions of Phythian’s state of mind. There’s a painful irony, as Martyn’s repeated explanation of why anti-depressants aren’t necessary includes the line, ‘You’re making eye contact with me’, when he himself rarely looks up from his laptop.

From here, Phythian explores some of the social side effects – such as a deterioration in her relationship (with Martyn returning to play a bemused boyfriend struggling to offer sympathy and support), and the pressure of dealing with a set of side effects – and, sadly, I’m not going to call them ‘severe’ side effects, as Phythian is really only focusing on the common or expected side effects of oral contraception (weight gain, mood shifts, loss of libido); ‘severe’ side effects are blood clots, stroke and death – that are continually brushed under the carpet.

While Pill is an autobiographical piece, it is also a provocative one. It is clear throughout that the intention is to provoke conversation. It’s true, there may be members of the audience who think that these side effects are all known quantities – perhaps they did have it all explained to them by a GP when they were first prescribed, or perhaps they made the choice not to take oral contraception in the first place – the point that is made very clearly and forcefully through the performances here is that so many people don’t know the risks. Or don’t feel able to weigh up risk against benefit in a meaningful way. Pill asks the question of how this can be addressed. How can we talk about this more?

The climactic moment of the play comes when Phythian strips her outerwear off to reveal words written across her body in black marker pen – ‘weight loss’, ‘weight gain’, ‘depression’, ‘high blood pressure’, etc. It’s an unambiguous visual metaphor, and it was clear from the Q&A afterwards that it was one that resonated with the audience.

For me, the real strength of Pill lay in the performances. Phythian is assured in her performance, conveying the desperation, frustration and anger with a compelling mixture of confrontation and vulnerability. She is believable and relatable, and it’s almost possible to believe some of the monologues are off-the-cuff, conversation starters (rather than a carefully scripted performance). When she addresses the audience, visibly tense and frightened, with words written across her body, it’s incredibly moving. As an older woman in the audience, I felt almost protective towards the woman before me on the stage – and this is part of the show’s intention. Again, how can we talk about this more? What role do we play, and what responsibility do we have towards younger generations of women (and, as an audience member pointed out in the Q&A, to trans men, transmasculine and nonbinary people)?

Overall, then, this was a strong start to the festival for me. Excellent performances, a well-written script, and a provocative subject matter made for a very thought-provoking play. I hope to see Pill develop further, as Phythian hinted at some future plans in the Q&A after the show. I’ll be watching with interest for these!

Pill was on at Salford Arts Theatre on 1st and 2nd July, as part of the Greater Manchester Fringe. It will also be on at the Fuse International Festival in London on 8th July. For the full programme of Greater Manchester Fringe shows on this year, please visit the festival website.

Review: Sandy (Peripeteia Theatre Company, GM Fringe)

Wednesday 29th September 2021
Salford Arts Theatre

The Greater Manchester Fringe ran throughout September. I’ve been reviewing shows from this year’s festival programme for this blog and for North Manchester FM. The final show I saw at this year’s Fringe was Sandy by Peripeteia Theatre Company at Salford Arts Theatre. The radio version of my review will be broadcast on this Saturday’s Hannah’s Bookshelf, but here’s the blog version…

The marketing information for Sandy was a bit circumspect, and so I went into this show with very few expectations. I knew it would be a ‘two-hander’, and I knew it would touch on the themes of femininity and womanhood. I also knew that the play would involve an inanimate object having thoughts and feelings, though I didn’t know how this would be presented on stage. Given the image of a lipstick on the play’s poster, I put all this together and came to… completely the wrong conclusion!

Written by Anna Pellegrini and directed by Adam Cachia, Sandy is a one-act play that packs a real punch. It’s no exaggeration to say that this was the hardest-hitting of the shows I saw at this year’s festival, and some scenes were pretty uncomfortable to watch. This is most definitely not a criticism – the play confounded what expectations I did have, and it’s a piece of theatre that will certainly stick with me for a while.

The play begins with a single figure, sitting with her (it does appear to be a female figure) back to the audience. She is motionless as the audience arrive, and we can see only the back of her long curly hair and a body shrouded in what looks like a hairdresser’s cape or something similar. The lights go down, and the figure on stage begins to speak, attempting to make sense of the things around her – for instance, a face is described in terms of a series of abstract shapes – and the space in which she finds herself.

The play’s opening is slow and unsettling. We have only small clues to help us parse the details that we see and hear. The figure on stage – who will eventually become known as Sandy – is played by Juliet Daalder, and her opening monologue is performed static on a chair with her body covered. There is something uncomfortable about Daalder’s performance, taking us tentatively into the uncanny valley, a place we’ll explore more as the play develops.

Now, I have seen another review of Sandy that resolutely refuses to give any spoilers about what is revealed on stage. I’ve taken the decision to be more direct in my review, partly because I’m not giving away any details that aren’t easy to find on the company’s social media, and also because I don’t think these details spoil the play. Nevertheless, I will remind you that I went into the play with uncertain expectations – if you want to have the same experience, then don’t read the rest of this review! Just take my word for it that this is an excellent piece of Fringe theatre that you should check out if you can!

So, for those of you who have stayed…

When the other performer, Hannah MacDonald, enters, the audience is able to start making sense of what they’re seeing – though this is a truly discomforting revelation. Daalder’s ‘character’ (if that’s the right term) is a sex doll. MacDonald plays an unnamed woman who has purchased the doll for her partner in an attempt to appease him and rekindle their relationship.

What follows is the promised ‘two-hander’, in which a triangle of relationships is played out through suggestion, implication and reaction. Through MacDonald’s monologues (even though she is often speaking towards Daalder’s character, it’s hard to describe this as a dialogue, as the two characters don’t always hear or respond to one another) and through her physical performance and mannerisms, we learn of the relationship this nameless woman has with her partner. The picture that’s painted is not a pretty one, and the audience intuit abuse, manipulation and the constant undermining of the woman’s self-esteem. MacDonald performs this with a brittle, almost abrasive, quality, creating a character driven as much by anger as by self-pity and sadness.

We also see Daalder’s doll’s relationship to the woman’s partner. In many ways, this is more raw than the nameless woman’s story. Told mostly in the aftermath of – shall we say? – encounters, there is a brutality to this part of the triangle that is really quite hard to watch. Daalder performs this with a powerful sense of physicality – and more on that shortly. It is because of the brutality and discomfort in these scenes that I’m loath to call her by the name given in the title. ‘Sandy’ is a name bestowed on the doll by the man (who, by the way, we don’t ever see or hear on stage). Such is the power of the scene in which this is explained that I actually feel uncomfortable calling the doll Sandy.

The third relationship presented is, in many ways, the one the audience is most invested in, and yet it is also the hardest one to understand. Much of the play’s focus is on the relationship between the nameless woman and the doll. The doll is hopeful when she’s purchased by the woman, and she imagines that they might be friends. Initially, the woman sees the doll as just that, brushing her hair and remembering the dolls she played with as a child. Each sees the other as ‘perfect’, but while this is a source of love for the doll, it becomes the site of resentment and bitterness for the woman.

At turns heart-breaking, shocking and frustrating, the woman’s relationship to the doll is what sticks in the mind after watching Sandy. Pellegrini’s script offers a really original idea, and the way in which the two characters talk at each other, rather than to each other, only very occasionally seeming to hear and understand one another, is very well-done. Cachia’s direction really adds to this, with the physical interactions between the two characters veering from intimate to detached (violent, even) in a way that is convincing but disturbing.

I have to give praise to the performances here, though. Daalder is captivating as the doll. Through her physical movement, facial expressions and speech patterns, she is a doll. As I say, this really is a trip to the uncanny valley – we know the actor is a human, but she is so doll-like at times that it’s hard to keep hold of that. One scene in particular, where the placement of Daalder’s limbs signals the aftermath of something unspoken but still somehow explicit, is particularly unsettling.

MacDonald’s performance takes us in the opposite direction. She begins as the human to Daalder’s non-human, but this binary is soon unsettled through the performance. MacDonald captures the disintegration of a personality with subtlety and depth. Neither one of the characters we see on stage can truly be called human.

As should be clear from this review, this is a strong recommendation from me! Sandy was the final play I saw at this year’s festival, but what a place to end! It’s interesting to compare it to where I started at the beginning of the month. The first play I saw was Eleanor May Blackburn’s Subdural Hematoma, a one-woman show that deals, in part, with a process of rehumanization. As I said in my review of Blackburn’s show, Subdural Hematoma includes sequences in which Blackburn deindividualizes herself through the use of a blank face mask, which I referred to as ‘uncanny’ and an ‘in between state’. I was reminded of this when I saw Sandy (and, of course, I was back at the Salford Arts Theatre, where the festival began for me), as it felt like something of a reversal. Although ostensibly Sandy presents an inanimate object with human thoughts and feelings, it’s actually a sustained exploration of dehumanization. Daalder’s doll isn’t really a person, but then neither is MacDonald’s woman.

Overall, Sandy was an exciting, thought-provoking and truly disquieting way to end this year’s Fringe festival. I don’t know if Peripeteia Theatre Company have plans to perform Sandy again elsewhere, but if you do get the chance to see it, I recommend you do so.

Sandy was on at Salford Arts Theatre on 29th and 30th September, as part of this year’s Greater Manchester Fringe. For more information about the Greater Manchester Fringe, please visit the festival’s website.

Review: Your Playground Voice is Gone (Libby Hall, GM Fringe)

Saturday 11th September 2021
Salford Arts Theatre

This year’s Greater Manchester Fringe runs from 1st-30th September, and I’m reviewing a selection of the shows on this year’s programme for this blog and for North Manchester FM. My second show of this year’s festival was on Saturday 11th September, when I was at the Salford Arts Theatre to see Libby Hall’s play Your Playground Voice is Gone. The radio version of this review will be going out on the Hannah’s Bookshelf GM Fringe Reviews Special on North Manchester FM on Tuesday 14th September. But here’s the blog version…

Your Playground Voice is Gone is a one-act play, written by Libby Hall and directed by Roni Ellis, and performed by the Salford Arts Theatre Young Performers Company. At the last Greater Manchester Fringe Festival, I reviewed Hall’s play The Melting of a Single Snowflake, which was also performed by the Young Performers Company, so I was interested to see what this new piece would be like.

In some ways, Your Playground Voice is Gone bears some similarities to The Melting of a Single Snowflake. It’s an ensemble piece with a single set, which uses the dialogue and conversations between an eclectic group of young people to develop its plot. Like Hall’s earlier play, Your Playground Voice is Gone explores themes of youth, identity and change. However, for all the superficial similarities, Your Playground Voice is Gone offers a quite different story – with a different sort of conclusion – to The Melting of a Single Snowflake, and it is thought-provoking in the way it does this.

The play opens on its single set – a fly-tip in some woodlands that is clearly acting as a makeshift den. John (played by Matthew Cox) and Rachel (Molly Edwards) rush onto stage as though fleeing something, and then proceed to wipe something red from their hands and t-shirts. They’re soon joined by Holly (Leia Komorowska) who is wearing school uniform, carrying what appears to be homework, and studiously ignoring the still-panicky behaviour of her peers.

Although they are clearly around the same age, the contrast between the characters is strikingly apparent even before the dialogue begins. While Komorowska’s Holly holds herself with the confident poise of a serious young woman, John’s youthful fragility is almost tangible. Sitting at the front of the stage in a near-constant state of bewilderment, Cox’s performance conveys both naïvety and fear of the adult world. In between these two is Edwards’s Rachel, who veers dramatically between maturity – there’s a touching maternal quality to the ways she helps John to wipe his hands – and vulnerability – she often flinches away, holding herself more like a frightened child than a confident adolescent.

These contrasts are heightened by the arrival of the rest of the cast. We meet Darcy (played by Scarlett Doyle), a rambunctious and flippant would-be rounders star in a bandana and camouflage jacket, Kelsey (played by Sienna Kavanagh), a more ‘girly’ girl who is wearing a rather misjudged face of makeup, Loz (played by Josie Leigh), who seems determined to criticize and question everything her friends do, and Alfie (Riley McCaffery), who confidently explains why his playground voice has gone early on with a rather blunt anatomical boast (which his friends don’t believe).

Although there is some movement around the stage, Your Playground Voice is Gone is carried almost entirely through the dialogue between the seven characters. There’s a healthy dose of light-hearted bickering and mockery, but also some serious conversation about (amongst other things) the physical abuse John is enduring at the hands of his mother, and the various ambitions each of the group have for when they’re ‘grown up’. As in her earlier play, Hall reveals a good ear for dialogue and a talent for writing humour. A highlight for me was Alfie’s confident assertion that his father is a self-employed gardener, because he grows plants in his house and then sells them on to his customers.

While the conversation ranges around from Kelsey’s conviction that she won’t grow old because she uses Nivea, to Holly’s insistence that she takes her schoolwork much more seriously than any of her peers, to Darcy’s casual announcement that she’s been diagnosed with ADHD (a fact that elicits sympathy from John, despite him not knowing what the condition is or how it might affect her), there is a thread that runs through, which will ultimately lead us to some unsettling revelations.

Throughout their chatter, the young characters keep returning to a sense of confusion between the child and adult worlds. This isn’t so much a play about the transitional nature of adolescence – as The Melting of a Single Snowflake was – but rather one that explores the sharp disjunctions that one experiences during that time of life. Rather than navigating a change from youth to maturity, the characters here are working through confusion and contradictions.

And these confusions and contradictions come thick and fast. For instance, while Alfie sees his father’s exploits through a lens of childlike naivety, he is able to look at the relationship between Holly and her teacher with more adult eyes. Darcy, who is the most playful and childlike in her actions throughout, seems to be the most knowing and worldly wide (though she mostly uses this knowledge to tease her more naïve peers).

While the performances are engaging and funny, and the jokes all land well, the real strength of Your Playground Voice is Gone lies in the storytelling. The conversations between the young people aren’t simply a meditation on the fractured and contradictory nature of adolescence, but rather a slow (and sometimes imperceptible) revelation of the underlying plot – which has, in fact, happened off-stage before the play began.

Hall’s storytelling here is even more ambitious than in The Melting of a Single Snowflake, as the story being told is not the one we might have expected. Throwaway comments and jokes early on – including some seemingly glib lines from Alfie – eventually turn out to be the heart of the piece. This is not a story about growing up in the general sense, but rather a tale with a much darker heart. This is carried through a mostly static seven-way conversation, but it still packs a punch when it is revealed.

The play’s ending is one that will stick with you, and it actively encourages the audience to ponder on its implications after the curtain has come down. For younger viewers, there are some clear and unequivocal messages about safety and boundaries, but for older audience members (like myself) the message is more troubling. As with Hall’s earlier play, the lack of a strong and supportive adult presence in these young people’s lives is felt keenly – from John’s abusive mother to Alfie’s ‘gardener’ father, the adults on the periphery of this story are unreliable at best, harmful at worst. The question is thus raised: can we really judge young people for finding their own solutions to problems if they have no adults to turn to for help?

In addition to this, the play’s ending is somewhat open. Everything is revealed through the words of a group of young people who veer wildly between childhood and maturity, and so we can never be completely assured of how they are comprehending things. Even when some apparently clear and unequivocal exposition is given, it is undercut by Rachel’s unsophisticated insistence that £72.11 is probably enough money for seven people to live on indefinitely. The open ending ensures that the audience is left wondering what will happen after the curtain comes down, but it also leaves some uncomfortable questions about what happened before it came up.

Overall, this is a compelling piece of theatre. The Young Performers Company offer some assured performances, handling both the humour and the darkness with confidence. Hall’s writing is sophisticated and controlled, with the story developing at a pace that makes clever use of the constraints of form and setting. Although the play is a single 50-minute act, it feels like there is much more here, and that the story is much deeper and longer.

After reviewing both The Melting of a Single Snowflake and Your Playground Voice is Gone, I am impressed with the Salford Arts Theatre Young Performers Company, and I’m also convinced we’re going to be seeing much more from writer Libby Hall in the future.

Your Playground Voice is Gone was on at the Salford Arts Theatre, on 11th-12th September, as part of the Greater Manchester Fringe. To see the full programme for this year’s GM Fringe, visit the festival website.

Review: Subdural Hematoma (Eleanor May Blackburn, GM Fringe)

Friday 3rd September 2021
Salford Arts Theatre

The 2021 Greater Manchester Fringe Festival began on Wednesday 1st September and runs until Thursday 30th September. After the tribulations of 2020, it’s great to see that this year’s programme is impressively varied. And as in previous years, I’m going to be reviewing a selection of the productions on offer throughout the month for this blog and for North Manchester FM.

On Friday 3rd September, I was at Salford Arts Theatre to review Subdural Hematoma, a one-woman show written and performed by Eleanor May Blackburn, and directed by Jack Victor Price. Before I start my review of the show, I’m just going to start by saying how lovely it was to be back at the Salford Arts Theatre again. Since I started reviewing theatre for North Manchester FM, I’ve been to quite a few shows at Salford Arts Theatre (Greater Manchester Fringe plays, but others as well) and – I know I probably shouldn’t have favourites – but it is one of my favourite Fringe venues. The last time I was at the theatre was the 2019 Fringe, so it was amazing to be able to go back again. Theatre and the performing arts generally have been so sorely hit by the uncertainty of Covid and lockdown, so I felt genuinely moved to be back at one of my favourite venues to experience a festival that I’m really very fond of. All credit to everyone at Salford Arts Theatre (and all the other venues) and to the festival organizers for putting on such a varied and interesting programme.

So… let’s talk about Subdural Hematoma, my first bit of Fringe theatre since July 2019… I’ll be playing the radio version of this review on my Hannah’s Bookshelf Greater Manchester Fringe Special on Saturday 4th September, but here’s the blog version…

As I’ve said, Subdural Hematoma is a solo performance by Blackburn, running at around an hour. It’s also an autobiographical show, which explores Blackburn’s experience of suffering… you guessed it… a subdural hematoma following a traumatic brain injury. Grim stuff, you might think. But it really wasn’t.

Perhaps the word ‘suffering’ was inaccurate here. The show is about Blackburn’s experience of surviving a subdural hematoma. As such, the show is both grim (at times) and celebratory, as well as moving, humorous and engaging.

Blackburn sets the tone of the show by opening with some quite unsettling replications of the noises made by someone struggling for breath. She then removes her top to reveal the words ‘tracheostomy’ and ‘line’ penned on her torso (accompanied by circles identifying the points of surgical entry) and – and this is the part that really set the tone – does a faux sexy dance while announcing them.

The ensuing performance takes us through the weeks Blackburn spent in a coma following a head injury. Much of the narration is a poetic monologue, but this is intercut with sections from a diary (written almost as letters to the patient) kept by her mother during this time and narrated as voiceover, as well as recordings of two other people who suffered subdural hematoma and are reflecting on what happened to them. At times, Blackburn dons a blank white face mask and uses physical performance to evoke the experience of emerging from a coma (something, she explains quite forcefully, that does not happen the way it does in films).

If you heard my reviews from the 2019 Greater Manchester Fringe, then you may remember that the shows I was particularly impressed with at the last festival were all one-woman shows. So it was a pleasure to begin this year’s festival watching another competent and well-crafted solo piece by a young woman with a real knack for compelling storytelling. Blackburn’s performance was engaging and enjoyable throughout, but I was especially taken with the way the story itself was crafted and realized on stage (and this is to the credit of both writer-performer Blackburn, but also Price’s direction).

One of the most impressive things for me was the way that Blackburn was able to narrate an experience in which, though she was undoubtedly the central figure, she played little to no active part. Indeed, as she tells us on a couple of occasions, she cannot actually remember everything that happened to her. It’s an ambitious undertaking to tell a story that you both were and weren’t part of, but this is handled well in Subdural Hematoma.

On the one hand, Blackburn offers us her own direct narration – accompanied by occasional outbursts, some blunt honesty about bodily functions, and a scattering of jokes that are sometimes bleak and sometimes daft – about what she has since learned about what happened. She defines some medical terms, though she dismisses this knowledge with a flippant ‘Thanks Google’, and starkly lays out the initial prognosis given to her parents. On the other hand, the voiceover diary entries undermine this directness, turning the story into something that was happening to Blackburn, something that could only really be described by someone else.

The use of the face mask is effective in bridging the gap between these two different narratives. When she dons the mask, Blackburn embodies a sort of uncanny ‘in between’ state where she is enacting, but not verbalizing, an unnerving and sometimes incoherent bodily experience. She is still clearly the same performer – Blackburn is on stage, alone and visible, for the entire show – but the mask serves to deindividualize her. (There’s also a bit with some tinsel strands that I really liked – but I don’t think I’ll spoiler that for you!)

It has to be said, there are some pretty striking tonal shifts in Subdural Hematoma, but they aren’t uncomfortably jarring. I found the diary entries to be particularly moving – I did get a lump in my throat at one point – but the move from that to a pretend stand-up routine of bad coma jokes was smooth. The show makes no bones about its autobiographical content, and Blackburn’s honest performance engages us in a way that lets us see these tonal changes as part of a rollercoaster of genuine emotions, rather than an attempt to shock or unsettle the audience.

One of the things that struck me afterwards, when I reflected on the emotional content of Subdural Hematoma, was the striking lack of anger. Although there are places where Blackburn rails against some specific details of the physical experience of being comatose – and one point where she expresses a momentary sense of unfairness that she, as a young woman, was in a hospital ward with women who were both older and less ill than herself – this is not a show that wallows in the cruelty or injustice of the situation. The overarching sense we get is that the brain injury was something that happened – just that – and the focus is on survival and recovery.

Again, it’s Blackburn’s performance as much as the writing that carries this. When she comes close to addressing the unfairness of the situation, she interrupts herself (or is interrupted by a voiceover) about another small improvement in her condition – she’s moved her foot or used an oxygen mask rather than a ventilator, for instance. Blackburn captures the enormity of these apparently tiny physical changes with a gleeful and infectious enthusiasm that encourages the audience to cheer along with her success (indeed, she directly instructs us to cheer along at one point!).

For me, that was the strongest part of Subdural Hematoma – its balancing act between the almost inconceivable enormity of the near-death experience and the small intimacies of a dad reading Harry Potter to his injured child or a mum finding fairy lights for a hospital bed gives the show a charming authenticity and familiarity.

Overall, I really enjoyed Subdural Hematoma. Blackburn’s storytelling is assured and well-realized, and her performance throughout is compelling. I’m glad this was my first Fringe show of the year, as it reminded me why I like this festival so much and why I’m pleased it’s back for 2021!

Subdural Hematoma was on at Salford Arts Theatre on 3rd September, as part of the Greater Manchester Fringe. For the full programme of Fringe shows on this year, please visit the festival website.

Review: Drowning in Silence (Salford Arts Theatre, GM Fringe)

Thursday 25th July 2019
Salford Arts Theatre

This year’s Greater Manchester Fringe is on throughout July. As you must know by now, I’m reviewing a number of the shows on this year’s packed programme for this blog and for North Manchester FM. The next play on my itinerary was Salford Arts Theatre’s Drowning in Silence, which I saw (unsurprisingly) at the Salford Arts Theatre on Thursday 25th July. You can hear my radio review on Tuesday’s show, but here’s the blog version…

Photo credit: Shay Rowan Photography

Written and directed by Roni Ellis, Drowning in Silence is a two-hander, performed by Emily Cox and Libby Hall. Earlier this month, I reviewed Libby Hall’s play (which was also staged as part of this year’s Fringe), The Melting of a Single Snowflake, so I’d experienced her writing, but not her acting. As I enjoyed the former so much, I was curious to see the latter! (Hall is the writer-in-residence at Salford Arts Theatre, and a former member of their Young Performers Company. I interviewed her about The Melting of a Single Snowflake on my Hannah’s Bookshelf Greater Manchester Fringe Special at the end of June.)

Drowning in Silence opens in a slightly unorthodox fashion, with a piece of projected film (shot by Ross McCormack) being shown on a white screen at the back of the stage. Edited as a montage of ‘home movie’ style footage, the film shows Cox and Hall messing around, playing together and laughing. It’s a neat piece of scene-setting, as it leaves the audience in no doubt that these two are sisters.

It is Cox – playing older sister Michelle – who enters on stage first. The set is sparse – just a couple of pieces of furniture and some scattered toys and blankets conjure up a room in a house, but it’s otherwise rather bare (and the reason for this will become clear as the one-act play unfolds). Carrying a birthday balloon, Michelle wanders across the stage to the pile of toys in a slow and deliberate style that will come to characterize the play as a whole. And then Hall – playing younger sister Jane – makes her entrance. Whooshing across the stage like an excited child, she joins Michelle, and the two sing a childish rhyme together and dress dolls. This is the first indication of the complexity and layering of Drowning in Silence’s narrative, as Cox and Hall appear here to be playing characters much younger than themselves.

It is not simply the set that is sparse. The narrative of Drowning in Silence also unfolds in a rather minimalist way. Michelle and Jane appear in short scenes from different periods of their childhoods, punctuated by melancholic piano music and the deliberate movements of Michelle (the elder of the two) around and across the stage. Each scene is triggered by an object that Michelle finds on the stage, giving the play an atmosphere of nostalgia and an indefinable sadness. The lighting emphasises this, as it alters from a stark bluish hue to warmer tones to signal the journey through memories of childhood.

Drowning in Silence is a story about loss and grief. We see the girls’ experience a life-changing incident and watch the way it affects them as individuals, but also their relationship to one another. Their closeness becomes strained, as secrets and lies slip into their interactions. A story bubbles under the surface, but Ellis’s script keeps it tightly under control (save for some neat foreshadowing), leaving the audience with the feeling that an awful lot is being left unsaid.

The two performances are excellent. Cox captures the uncertainty and awkwardness of an older sibling who, while still a child herself, is thrust into a more adult role. But I also very much enjoyed her performance in the flashbacks to earlier moments of the girls’ childhood – as an older sister myself, I really related to Michelle’s attempts to be the ‘mature one’, exhorting her little sister to ‘follow the leader – and I’m the leader’. Cox successfully carries the more emotive scenes of the play, often doing so through movement and expression rather than dialogue. It’s an impressive performance, imbued with both maturity and gravity.

Photo credit: Shay Rowan Photography

And Hall is fantastic as Jane. Moving between a lively (slightly bossy) little child, a rather serious tween, and a moody and frustrated teenager, even in her more stereotypically ‘stroppy’ dialogue, Hall conveys a sensitive and sympathetic vulnerability that is really quite moving. If talented young performer Hall isn’t one to watch for the future, then I don’t know who is!

As I’ve said, there is a story under the surface of Drowning in Silence that is held in check until the play’s final (and emotional) punch. I must admit, I did guess this early on, but this didn’t spoil my enjoyment of the play at all. Instead, I was interested in paying attention to how the story unfolds, and the techniques used to reveal things to (and hide them from) the audience.

Ellis’s script is tight, with a compelling combination of theatrical dialogue (and near-monologue at times) combined with judicious and expressive use of silences (as may be expected from the play’s title). Along with this, her direction makes use of the unspoken and unexplained to develop narrative. The play’s real strength lies in the way the story is literally not told – it lies in the silence, the unsaid and the implied. Again, the lighting is used to good effect here – silence is often accompanied by a change or dropping of the lights to shift the mood and tone.

Overall, Drowning in Silence is a compelling piece of theatre that pulls off the impressive feat of being (overtly) melancholic throughout without becoming maudlin or mawkish. With effective direction, a sensitive script and strong central performances, Drowning in Silence is a strong recommendation from me. And I can’t wait to see what Salford Arts Theatre do next!

Drowning in Silence was on at the Salford Arts Theatre on 24th-26th July, as part of the Greater Manchester Fringe. To see the full programme of shows on at this year’s Fringe, visit the festival website.

Review: The Melting of a Single Snowflake (Salford Arts Theatre, GM Fringe)

Wednesday 17th July 2019
Salford Arts Theatre

The Greater Manchester Fringe continues throughout July, and I continue to review shows for this blog and for North Manchester FM. In 2017, I reviewed two Fringe shows, and in 2018, I reviewed eleven. I definitely think I’m on track to beat that number in 2019! On Wednesday 17th July, I saw The Melting of a Single Snowflake at Salford Arts Theatre, a new play by writer-in-residence Libby Hall. Hall was one of the people I interviewed back in June for my Hannah’s Bookshelf Greater Manchester Fringe Special, so once again I was really looking forward to seeing this one.

Written by Hall and directed by Roni Ellis, The Melting of a Single Snowflake is an ambitious ensemble piece featuring performers from Salford Arts Theatre’s Young Performers Company. As I talked about with Hall in our interview, the play grew out of workshops involving the young actors, meaning that the company played an integral role in generating and developing ideas for Hall’s script.

The Melting of a Single Snowflake takes place in the aftermath of the disappearance of a schoolboy, Sam, during the summer holidays. The cast (of eleven young actors) play a group of Sam’s friends, peers and neighbours who are brought together through their shared (if a little tenuous in some cases) involvement in Sam’s life. The real ambition of the piece lies in the fact that the story is carried entirely by the young performers (there are no adult characters in the play), and also in the complexity of the relationships that are evoked through the dialogue. This isn’t a straightforward tale of the powerful bonds of friendship, but rather a story that reminds us young people have just as many varied reasons for spending time together as adults do.

Set during the school holidays and with a recorded audio backdrop of news reports on adolescent mental health, gang crime and Sam’s disappearance, The Melting of a Single Snowflake unabashedly sets itself up to tackle ‘big’ issues. As the young people gather to discuss the missing boy, conversations range from knife crime to drugs, from social media to sexuality. There is a frankness to these conversations, which is both hard-hitting and humorous, and some of the issues raised are handled in surprising and nuanced ways.

In particular, I found several of the conversations about Cameron (played by Adam Marsland)’s sexuality offered a refreshing and sensitive take. However, this was done without heavy-handed virtue-signalling, as the overall message was punctuated by a range of responses – from Kay (Calia Wild)’s concern that the group is too young for romantic relationships, to Alfie (Dillon Parker)’s clumsy macho posturing, to Amber (Sienna Kavanagh)’s comical confusion of bisexuality with bipolar disorder. While some poetic licence is employed to have all of these reactions occurring openly and simultaneously, The Melting of a Single Snowflake offers a convincing microcosm of the confusion and conflict that accompanies coming-of-age.

I’ve used the word ‘conversations’ a lot in this review, and it feels like the most apt description of how story is constructed in the play. The action takes place off-stage – indeed, some has occurred before the play begins, and some will occur in the time that elapses during the interval – and so everything we know about these characters, about their world, and about the missing boy Sam is conveyed though the dialogue. This is a challenge for the cast, but – aided by smart direction by Ellis – they are up to the task. With the group coming and going from the stage, and interacting in different combinations at different times, a sense of flow and development is created.

The Melting of a Single Snowflake is very much an ensemble piece, and it’s not really possible to single out individual performances or characters as ‘central’. Each one carries a part of the story, and the play’s strength lies in its group dynamic, from Josie Leigh’s belligerent wannabe boxer Mia to Jasmin Marsland’s know-it-all Demi.

I enjoyed the dynamic between Jake (Charlie Kenney) and Jodie (Elizabeth Pearson), two very different young people caught up in a world of crime that’s way outside their control. Leia Komorowska is great as fragile and haunted outsider Levi, and Joel Hill reveals excellent comic timing in his performance as Devon, a filter-less chatterbox whose near-continuous off-the-wall monologue throws the audience off-guard for one of the play’s more aggressive sucker-punches. Last but by no means least, Vincent Purcell plays Tom, Levi’s older brother and an eloquent observer of the group and its various social predicaments. In places appearing like a character somewhat out of time, Tom emerges as a detached and astute narrator of human frailty – but one surrounded by darkness and grief.

The Melting of a Single Snowflake is very much a game of two halves. On the one hand – and probably the more dominant aspect of the first act – it is a narrative that highlights the fears, concerns and disillusionments of young people, signalled by the news commentary. In the face of a crisis in mental health care, knife crime, a gang that may or may not have killed their friend, and (I don’t want to sound old here) a complete lack of adult support or intervention, how are these young people supposed to cope? However, there is another intriguing and compelling story running parallel to this, a much more personal (and, in many ways, more old-school theatrical) tale that comes into its own in the second act – but to say anymore would give spoilers! All credit to Hall, though, for bringing these two aspects together into a strong overall story.

In addition to the great writing, direction and performances, The Melting of a Single Snowflake also features a stylish set design by Roni Ellis and Scott Berry, which uses scattered debris and rubbish (including – I’m sure I saw – an old discarded municipal street sign for the Salford Arts Theatre’s predecessor theatre!) and a graffitied wall to effectively evoke both locale and the atmosphere.

The Melting of a Single Snowflake is an ambitious and thought-provoking piece of theatre, which showcases the talents of the Salford Arts Theatre’s young performers company and of its writer-in-residence, Libby Hall (who came through the company herself). A very enjoyable show that packs an unexpected punch.

The Melting of a Single Snowflake is on at Salford Arts Theatre on 17th-19th July, as part of the Greater Manchester Fringe. For the full programme of Fringe shows on this year, visit the festival website.

Review: Once a Year on Blackpool Sands (Skint Productions, GM Fringe)

Friday 20th July 2018
Salford Arts Theatre

Another (slightly delayed) Greater Manchester Fringe review from me… This time it’s Skint Productions’ Once a Year on Blackpool Sands.

Written by Karlton Parris, and inspired by true story told to Parris thirty years ago in Mykonos, Once a Year on Blackpool Sands is set in 1953, just after the Coronation. Eddy and Tommy are Yorkshire miners and secret lovers, who travel to Blackpool for their Wakes holidays. I must admit I was really intrigued to see this one, as the play is due to travel to New York for an Off-Broadway run in September, and a film version is also in pre-production. This is pretty big stuff for a Fringe show, so I was excited to see what the play has to offer.

The play begins with Eddy (played by Kyle Brookes) and Tommy (Macaulay Cooper) arriving in the seaside town. Eddy has decided that they won’t be staying at the same hotel as the rest of their party, and has instead booked them into Withering-Heights-on-Sea, a down-at-heel and almost empty guest house where they might be able to get some privacy.

Withering-Heights-on-Sea is run by a rather odd woman named Gladys (Wendy Laurence James), who is at turns snobbish, social climbing, overly solicitous, inappropriate, and impatient. Gladys is assisted (in a way) by her daughter Maureen (Mollie Jones) and her mother, former communist showgirl ‘Red’ Ethel (Linda Clark). The trio of women are loud, brash and inquisitive – suggesting that Tommy and Eddy may not get the privacy they want and need.

The final character is Mr Elbridge, the only guest in the B and B. Mr Elbridge is a transvestite – to use the 1950s terminology generally employed by the play – and is trying to find the courage to walk from the North Pier to the South as a woman (which the play emphasizes as an important rite of passage).

As the characters interact, interrupt and reveal their stories to one another (and to the audience), we come to see Withering-Heights-on-Sea as a refuge from the outside world, an escape from the judgments of a society that not only doesn’t accept trans identities, but criminalizes homosexual behaviour. Within the walls of the guest house, a range of identities are free to express themselves without fear of repercussions.

The central storyline is that of Eddy and Tommy. Brookes and Cooper play their parts excellently. There’s real chemistry between the two, but they also present the complexities and conflicts of the relationship. Eddy is the more forthright of the two, keen to abandon the constraints of their lives and flee to America. Sporting a noticeable shiner throughout the play – the origin of which is only revealed part way through the second act – Eddy is tense, unsettled and angry. But he is also fragile, and Brookes handles the gradual revelation of everything that has brought Eddy to this point with sympathy and credibility. Tommy is the more composed character – reluctant to do anything to rock the boat and keen to return home to their ‘normal’ lives after a brief escape in Blackpool. But there’s more going on under the surface, of course, and Cooper gives an often understated performance that is, again, very sympathetic.

While Eddy and Tommy’s relationship is the central story, the women of Withering-Heights-on-Sea have their own series of tales to tell. Red Ethel is foul-mouthed, disabled by a stroke, and antagonistic towards her daughter, but her brash mix of put-downs and nostalgia (for the days when she was the girl-about-town in Moscow) eventually gives way to a poignant description of her own tragic love life. Ethel’s granddaughter Maureen – constantly described as useless and ‘simple’ by her mother – is a girl desperate to shake off the 1950s and enjoy sex without fear of moral condemnation. But it is Gladys who is, perhaps, the most interesting of the women. A bag of complete contradictions, Gladys doesn’t seem to know what she wants to be. On the one hand, she is making a rather pathetic attempt at social climbing – serving ‘scooones’ and boasting about her connection to the Deputy Mayor – on the other, she is a former chorus girl who understands and respects the secrets her visitors harbour.

The play presents these intertwined stories through a series of scenes in the various bedrooms of the guest house. At times, these scenes risk feeling a little static – characters sit together in rooms and tell their stories, often in rather lengthy speeches, and the only movement comes from brief interactions with props and costume. However, on the whole, this works, as the play really is about the stories (or secrets) people hold inside themselves, and so it seems fitting that these are revealed through dialogue rather than action. I will be interested to see how this is handled in the film adaptation, however, as I suspect more of these stories will be ‘seen’ rather than ‘told’.

Parris’s script moves us from heartbreak to fear to bawdy seaside humour. On the whole, the men get the hard-hitting anger and pain, while the humour falls to the women (with the notable and unexpected exception of Ethel’s poignant speech about a lover in Russia). The humour is very well done. Although there is plenty of dirty jokes and innuendo (as is probably expected of the Blackpool setting), there is also some very witty commentary on sexuality and identity – Maureen’s black pudding/pasty analogy was a highlight for me. Nevertheless, as I say, the women do have pains of their own. Clark and Laurence James do a great job of suggesting the internal conflicts that lurk under the comic façade.

Once a Year on Blackpool Sands is certainly the longest play I’ve seen at this year’s Fringe. If I have a criticism, it’s that the play occasionally felt a bit too long. In places, there was tendency to over-explanation – things that had already been conveyed through the performances were stated explicitly in the dialogue, and it may have been better to trust in the subtext more. That said, there’s a lot of story here, and a clear desire to do that story justice.

The play’s climax is moving and well-staged. The use of a projector – used elsewhere in the play to cast backdrops and scenery – to cast images highlighting the significance of the finale was poignant and moving. And yes – this is another GM Fringe production that made me cry.

Once a Year on Blackpool Sands is a big show – bigger than I was expecting, to be honest. There’s a lot of story, powerful performances, and emotive writing. I definitely enjoyed the stage version, and will be looking forward to seeing the film version when it’s released.

Review: Hobson’s Choice (Salford Theatre Company)

Friday 8th June 2018
Salford Arts Theatre

Hobson’s Choice was written by Harold Brighouse in 1916. Set in Salford in the 1880s, the play is about bootmaker Henry Hobson and his three daughters, Maggie, Alice and Vickey. This new production by Salford Theatre Company is on at the Salford Arts Theatre from 6th to 23rd June.

It’s fairly standard to see reviews of Hobson’s Choice stating that the play was ‘shocking’ in its day, both for its depiction of female characters and its side-swipe at snobbishness and a rigid class system. Undoubtedly, there are unexpected elements – Maggie’s coercing/bullying Will Mossop into marriage on the grounds of ‘good business sense’, Hobson’s pathetic diatribe on the uppishness of women and the value of the British middle class – but I’m not convinced that these would have been scandalous in 1916.

Maggie Hobson/Mossop is certainly a character who defies feminine stereotypes and behaves in an unconventional way. At 30, she is ‘old’ (a fact that her father points out on a number of occasions), and she rejects romance for sensible business practice. She demands Hobson’s meek boothand Will Mossop marries her, sending away poor Ada Figgins (Will’s erstwhile fiancée) with a flea in her ear, and then effectively puts her own father out of business. But while Maggie doesn’t conform to the stereotype of the polite young lady, she certainly embodies another stereotype – the northern battle-axe. Hobson’s Choice isn’t so much shocking as it is proper northern. Perhaps Maggie would have been seen as an outrageous character if Brighouse had set his play in that London, but she seems perfectly at home in Salford.

The Salford Theatre Company’s production presents Brighouse’s play ‘as is’, i.e. without any attempt to update the material. Their version is a period piece set in 1880 – as the play was always intended to be (being set over 30 years earlier than it was written). Any attempt to modernize Hobson’s Choice or ‘make it relevant’ would only obscure the play’s comical balance of affectionate nostalgia and modernizing desire.

This balance is struck in the Salford Theatre Company’s production quite simply through staging and performance. The period features are there, but not overdone. The sets feel like 1880, but aren’t meticulous or overdressed. The performances aren’t overstated or mannered.

Stand-out performances are Scott Berry as Henry Hobson and Lyndsay Fielding as Maggie. Inevitably, productions of Hobson’s Choice encourage comparisons with David Lean’s 1954 film version – indeed, I heard people in the bar before the show talking about Lean’s film – but Berry and Fielding offered very different performances to those of Charles Laughton and Brenda de Banzie.

Fielding’s Maggie is believable as a not-quite-old-maid with a good business head on her shoulders. No-nonsense and shrewd, rather than bossy and bitter, this Maggie is easy to root for and more three-dimensional than some other portrayals of the character. It’s quite easy to see why Will Mossop quickly comes round to the idea that she’s the woman for him (making the final scenes with the couple all the more enjoyable).

Berry is excellent as Hobson. He avoids a bombastic, larger-than-life performance in favour of a more personable, sympathetic portrayal. Berry’s Hobson is a small man, shrinking back into his outdated beliefs in an attempt to fight off the inevitable. Even his most well-known speech (on the ‘uppishness’ of women) is deflated – as though he already knows he’s on a losing streak. It’s a relief to know he has a daughter (and son-in-law) who can take care of him at the end.

Of the other performances, Elka Lee-Green and Connie James are enjoyable as Alice and Vickey – keeping up a comical array of facial expressions whenever the other characters were talking. Joseph Walsh is likable as Willie Mossop, handling the transition from hapless boothand to confident small businessman well. The warmth that develops between Will and Maggie is convincing and satisfying.

It’s always nice to watch a production of Hobson’s Choice on its home turf. The local references (like Willie’s lines about the metaphorical distance from Oldfield Road to Chapel Street to St Ann’s Square) still make you smile, and Hobson and his daughters haven’t lost their Salfordian charm.

Hobson’s Choice is on at Salford Arts Theatre until 23rd June.