Keeping the faith
A play about a northern funeral and the return of High Fidelity to its rightful north London setting demonstrate the importance of a sense of place
A sense of place is vital to a play’s success, says Michael Billington
THE Royal Exchange, Manchester, is one of the success stories of postwar theatre. I remember how, when it opened in 1976, its co-founder Michael Elliott talked of the importance of creating temporary structures that reflected the taste of the times. Now, 43 years on, the Royal Exchange feels a permanent part of the theatrical landscape. Its most recent director, Sarah Frankcom, is bowing out with a moving new play, Light Falls by Simon Stephens, that offers a hymn to the North and an unfashionable endorsement of family life.
At first, it might not look that way, as Mr Stephens depicts a family that’s widely scattered. His play starts with a monologue by the middle-aged Christine, who dies in a Stockport supermarket when reaching for a bottle of vodka. We then see where members of her family were at the time of her death. Her husband was wanly experimenting with a threesome in a Doncaster hotel; one daughter was meeting a new lover in Blackpool as another was rejecting an ex-partner in Ulverston; and her student son was having a day out in Durham with his air-steward boyfriend.
It may not look like the happiest of families, but, when they meet for Christine’s funeral, the prevailing notes are tolerance and forgiveness. The air steward sums up the mood when, quoting Paddington 2, he says: ‘If we’re kind and polite, the world will be right.’
As well as suggesting we need to behave better to each other— and ‘always thank bus drivers’ —the play offers a portrait of the north of England in all its diversity. The action is underscored by a song by Jarvis Cocker, which many of the characters sing a cappella and which advocates ‘don’t forget your northern blood’. I’ve heard some criticism of that sentiment, but I suspect that Mr Cocker is implying that there's a kinship in the North that survives economic hardship.
What is touching is that the play deals with the eternal verities: life, death, the consolations of love and family. It’s well played on an intriguing Naomi Dawson set that subverts the theatre’s circularity by creating an end-stage with a monumental flight of steps.
Rebecca Manley as the maternal Christine, Lloyd Hutchinson as her errant husband, David Moorst as her gay son and Witney White and Katie West as her daughters give fine performances, showing how the pangs of daily life are offset by a sense of its pleasures. The production is a fine farewell to Miss Frankcom’s Manchester tenure.
If a sense of place matters in Light Falls, it is absolutely crucial in a musical version of Nick Hornby’s comic novel High Fidelity, playing at a newly opened venue, the Turbine, in a massive riverside development by Battersea Power Station.
The whole point about the novel is that it’s set in a record store dedicated to the preservation of vinyl on London’s Holloway Road, but a film version relocated the story to Chicago and this
An essential ingredient of good drama is location, location, location
American musical was originally set in Brooklyn. It’s now been adapted by Vikki Stone and restored to its London locale, which seems entirely right. Indeed, it’s one of the most enjoyable small-scale musicals I’ve seen in a long time.
The story focuses on the shop owner Rob, a pop-music nerd for whom list-making becomes a substitute for emotional engagement. That’s why his lawyer girlfriend, Laura, dumps him, until he comes to his senses and realises relating to complex people is more valuable than creating mix tapes.
There’s a lively score by Tom Kitt and decent lyrics by Amanda Green, but the real pleasure lies in the inventive direction and choreography of Tom Jackson Greaves and in the exuberance of the performances. Oliver Ormson lends the self-absorbed Rob a boyish charm reminiscent of Hugh Grant and Shanay Holmes suggests the disenchanted Laura is sharp-brained and spirited. Even if you’re not into pop music, it’s worth a trip to the Turbine to witness what is happening in burgeoning Battersea.
I wish I could say I felt in Annie Baker’s The Antipodes, at the Dorfman, the same sense of place I found in High Fidelity and Light Falls. Miss Baker is a fascinating writer, as she proved in The Flick and John, but this time I was struck by her play’s gradual loss of momentum.
It takes place in an anonymous conference-room where a group of characters, under the watchful eyes of a manipulative chairman, tell and dissect stories. Initially, I was intrigued as the people revealed themselves through their narratives, but I was frustrated by the vagueness of the setting and the purpose—do all the characters work for a TV or film company?—and the standard apocalyptic conclusion.
Conleth Hill is terrific as the rumpled chairman and there’s strong support from Imogen Doel as his ambitious PA, Sinéad Matthews as a part-icelandic fabulist and Stuart Mcquarrie as a troubled contributor banished for garnishing the truth. However, I never knew where I was and I found myself thinking that one of the essential ingredients of good drama is location, location, location. ‘Light Falls’, until November 16 (0161–833 9833); ‘High Fidelity’, until December 7 (020–7851 0300); ‘The Antipodes’, until November 23 (020–7452 3000) At a glance Light Falls ✸ ✸ ✸ ✸ ✸ High Fidelity ✸ ✸ ✸ ✸ ✸ The Antipodes ✸ ✸ ✸ ✸✸