For those who like to know these things, this play by Jim Cartwright was voted thirty-sixth best play of the twentieth century in a poll run by The Royal National Theatre. First performed in 1986, it is a savagely written, blackly comic indictment of the effects years of Thatchers rule had on the country, specifically Lancashire where the play is set.
Under the guidance and direction of OJ Coulombeau and James Whittle, this young company lead us on a dark journey down the road to nowhere as the various characters take us through one dark and desperate nights existence. Our narrator on this journey is a terrifying tramp called Scullery, excellently played by Ashton Kelly. Scullery seems to inhabit this road, and much of the passing human traffic has to deal with his scathing verbal assaults, as does the audience. Theres something Beckettian about this place, but the scary thing is this is not a no-mans land as in Godot, this is a real place inhabited by real people, and the dustbin employed by Becket as a metaphor in several plays is a real prop here, employed to both comic and tragic effect.
This is an extraordinary play, and Cartwrights language is by turns caustic and poetic a character speaks of feeling pressed like a leaf and the whole era is summed up as these dole-hole times. The acting is committed and for the most part truthful, especially from the girls, though occasionally some of the company stare at the floor a little too much when delivering monologues.
This isnt true of James Whittles superbly focused and terrifying Skin Lad, whos monologue I have seen played at many auditions and actors showcases, but never better than here. Its aided by the lighting, which slowly transforms him into a Buddha as the speech closes. In fact much of this show is back-lit, giving both a sinister edge to the landscape and a clever dislocating effect where sometimes it is these lonely and needy characters who seem to be peering our of the gloom at us in the light rather than the other way round.
The play has been cut, and as such loses a bit of the coherence and sense of tragic inevitability of the original, and has been updated with references to bling and Beyonce. At first I wasnt sure that was a good idea, but it is an absolute fact that following Thatchers demise and ten years of Blair there are still places and people like this, people consigned to the dustbin simply by virtue of the place they were born.
This production is dedicated to the memory Lester Shaw, who taught some of the members of this group. He would be very proud.
