Edinburgh Festival
Theatre
4 stars
When it comes, the
climax of Simon Beaufoy's stage adaptation of his 1997 film about a
group of unemployed Sheffield steel-workers who find emancipation by
becoming strippers is as hen night-tastic as you expect it to be. The
wolf whistles began some two and a half hours earlier, from the
moment Kenny Doughty stepped onstage as Gaz, the laddish everyman who
breaks into the deserted factory where he and his mate Dave used to
work to nick girders to flog for scrap. Also left behind is a blue
crane named Margaret, after the woman who effectively put a nation of
heavy industry workers on the dole.
Meanwhile, sisters are
doing it for themselves watching The Chippendales, which inspires Gaz
to enlist a troupe of his own to make a few bob. What Gaz, Dave and
their motley crew of ne'er do wells actually achieve isn't just a
rediscovery of their own personal mojos, but a reawakening of a
collective spirit through the power of dance, brilliantly
choreographed here by Frantic Assembly's Steven Hoggett.
On one level, Daniel
Evans' high-spirited production is as one-dimensional as a piece of
John Godber populism, and one wishes some of the cast would stop
trying so hard to be funny, but beyond this there is pathos and
politics too. Here are men whose very identity has been crushed, and
who have become emasculated to breaking point, but who find the sort
of solidarity that's so desperately needed again today. Ultimately,
it's the money shot that counts here, but this is a brash fanfare for
the common man that's deep as well as macho.
The Herald, March 28th 2013
ends
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