Citizens Theatre, Glasgow
2 stars
As the 25th anniversary of the ill-fated miner’s strike has proved, the Yorkshire working classes are used to being vilified. Jack Shepherd’s play may be set thirty years before, but his depiction of backstage life at Leeds Empire depicts an industry similarly on its last legs, as top of the bill comic Reg is forced to make way for a new generation of post-war crooners. Reg’s angry response is to defend his territory, as he proceeds to destroy number one dressing room before drinking himself into a stupor, all the while declaiming how he transcended but is still one of ‘his people’ in the audience. Around Reg orbit an array of desperate novelty acts and proto-Thatcherite matriarchs on the make, even as champagne quaffing songstrel Janey Shore shows the future as ushered in by theatre manager Stanley.
On one level, Shepherd’s play is an endearingly old-fashioned back-stage drama, the play’s metaphor-ridden premise a potentially fascinating dissection of the variety era. But in Nicky Henson’s production for the Love and Madness Ensemble, it never fully reaches out into the Citizens’ main auditorium the way it needs to. Part of this is the play’s fault. Shepherd is too affectionate towards his characters, and where Jim Bywater’s Reg needs unmitigated venom, he seems mildly irritated.
While Shepherd himself makes a sensitively realised Stanley, elsewhere there’s little of the poignancy required, while a Mary Whitehouse figure and an out of time chanteuse are little more than cartoon figures. Maybe this is something to do with Shepherd’s programme note observation of Glasgow as a graveyard for northern comics, but here at least, that joke isn’t funny anymore.
The Herald, March 12th 2009
ends
2 stars
As the 25th anniversary of the ill-fated miner’s strike has proved, the Yorkshire working classes are used to being vilified. Jack Shepherd’s play may be set thirty years before, but his depiction of backstage life at Leeds Empire depicts an industry similarly on its last legs, as top of the bill comic Reg is forced to make way for a new generation of post-war crooners. Reg’s angry response is to defend his territory, as he proceeds to destroy number one dressing room before drinking himself into a stupor, all the while declaiming how he transcended but is still one of ‘his people’ in the audience. Around Reg orbit an array of desperate novelty acts and proto-Thatcherite matriarchs on the make, even as champagne quaffing songstrel Janey Shore shows the future as ushered in by theatre manager Stanley.
On one level, Shepherd’s play is an endearingly old-fashioned back-stage drama, the play’s metaphor-ridden premise a potentially fascinating dissection of the variety era. But in Nicky Henson’s production for the Love and Madness Ensemble, it never fully reaches out into the Citizens’ main auditorium the way it needs to. Part of this is the play’s fault. Shepherd is too affectionate towards his characters, and where Jim Bywater’s Reg needs unmitigated venom, he seems mildly irritated.
While Shepherd himself makes a sensitively realised Stanley, elsewhere there’s little of the poignancy required, while a Mary Whitehouse figure and an out of time chanteuse are little more than cartoon figures. Maybe this is something to do with Shepherd’s programme note observation of Glasgow as a graveyard for northern comics, but here at least, that joke isn’t funny anymore.
The Herald, March 12th 2009
ends
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