Spitfires make a bumpy landing
Southampton has a ( slightly antiseptic) new theatre, the nSt City. Could they not have devised a more romantic name?
the Spitfire theatre might have been more fun. after all, Southampton was home to the Woolston Supermarine Spitfire factory and in the autumn of 1940 the Germans bombed it, imperilling the RaF’s ability to defend Britain.
In a play commissioned for the opening of the nSt City, howard Brenton looks at how Lord Beaverbrook, minister for aircraft production, responded to that crisis. he requisitioned not only a local stately home, but several Southampton business premises.
Within weeks, the Spitfire production line had been rehoused in them. not everyone took this at first in the spirit of patriotic self-sacrifice.
mr Brenton devises a local laundry owner, Fred Dimmock, who boils with anger at the Government’s high- handed ways. It is rather refreshing to see this bolshiness, though Fred later comes round and does his bit for the war effort.
the Shadow Factory often resembles the sort of story-telling you might find at a community heritage centre, complete with some pretty feeble songs. But there are just about enough theatrical effects (clever lighting of the stage floor) to hold the attention. the story trots along, Left-winger mr Brenton crowbarring in some predictions of the socialist upheaval that ousted Churchill at the end of the war.
as for the acting, David Birrell plays fiery Fred, Lorna Fitzgerald is his sassy daughter, Daniel York is good as the Supermarine chief engineer and hilton mcRae makes a thoroughly believable Beaverbrook. Fearing that Churchill is again going to make him drink all night at the Ritz, Beaver book says: ‘What’s gonna get me first? the Luftwaffe or my liver?’
anita Dobson does a couple of turns, neither wildly subtle. the audience liked best a moment when the Dimmock lass tells her parents she has a boyfriend. there is just one trouble. What’s that? Is he already married? What terrible drawback could he have? pause. then, to gasps: ‘he’s from portsmouth!’
DoWn at the bottom of one of those halifax valleys, Charles Dickens’s hard times is being staged in an old industrial mill.
If this touring show is done with a sledgehammer, that may be understandable: compressing Dickens into less than three hours is hard. the story of utilitarian mr Gradgrind and his more free- spirited children is done with shouting and blunt characterisation. howard Chadwick’s self-made Josiah Bounderby belongs to the Brian Blessed school of acting.
Still, he injects some energy and the unveiling of Bounderby’s deceit is a good comic moment. the hearty performances may in part have been driven by a need to overcome the Viaduct’s acoustics, particularly in this traverse format.
a multi-tasking cast of ten uses minor costume tweaks (working class cameo? — quick, flat cap and scarf!). there are also songs and parp-ety circus music. need that drum be whacked quite so loudly?
Victoria Brazier bends to almost 45 degrees to play nosy crone mrs Sparsit. anthony hunt’s doomed factory hand, Stephen Blackpool, provides a welcome dose of reflection.
the halifax audience seemed to enjoy it, but I could have done with a stronger tragic idea of how mr Gradgrind’s bone- dry philosophies create the human tinder which will eventually catch fire.