Bitter satire amid a round of froth
Theatre Early Doors Lowry Centre, Salford
And still they come – the British sitcoms that do not go gentle into the twilight of vintage television channels, the object of endless repeats, but instead fight back as fresh theatrical curiosities, offering fans the chance to laugh once more and dab a nostalgic tear from their collective cheeks.
In recent years, we’ve had stage
incarnations of Dad’s Army, Steptoe and Son, Yes, Prime Minister, The Likely
Lads, and The Liver Birds, too. Only Fools and Horses is being developed as a West End musical. The back-catalogue of family favourites will continue to be raided and it’s hard to get irate – even if the forces of political correctness loom ever larger (an am-dram run of Are You
Being Served? at Hull Truck was scrapped earlier this year for failing to “reflect the diversity and inclusion of a modern Britain”).
The small-screen may have been the ideal medium, the original broadcasts the shows’ finest hours. But this is the theatre of reassurance, letting some of the warmth of the sitting-room steal into local community hubs. And, if handled with care, the writing offers an assurance of quality. Not Pinter or Miller, no, but nor is it necessarily “lowest common denominator”. The latest to hit the stage is Early
Doors, that critically admired but slightly under-celebrated BBC sitcom from the early Noughties, set in a Stockport pub called the Grapes. In some ways, it’s the most obvious candidate for a theatrical transplant of the lot – the overarching “joke” was that the characters were boxed in, a sort of comedic lock-in. Regulars came in to pass the time, rib the mildly hapless, quietly fretful landlord Ken (John Henshaw), grouch, bicker and stare towards the frosted glass, boundary marker to an outside world best left to its own devices.
It was as if a northern boozer had been taken over by the spirit of Beckett – “such a slow-burning comedy that you only start to smile during the next programme”, one reviewer drily noted – others hailed a mini-masterpiece.
That’s overstating it, but there’s an ease to the humour here that confirms that writers Craig Cash and Phil Mealey (who star as doleful pals Joe and Duffy) were on to something, even if it ran a fine line between affectionately mocking its characters’ foibles and condescending to their rudimentary personality types and dim-wittery.
Much of the original cast have been reconvened, enabling things to pick up roughly where series two left off, in emotional terms – with Henshaw’s lantern-jawed Ken still hankering after bar-assistant Tanya (Susan Cookson) to the annoyance of his interfering ma Jean (on this occasion, Judith Barker) – even if we’re now in the online age.
Resident skinflint old-git Tommy remains a delightfully dour fixture – albeit at the centre of a big twist – and the preposterously gormless Eddie and Joan have been replaced by a pair of identikits in idiocy Freddie and June (Neil Hurst, Vicky Binns). It helps if you already know who’s who, but hardly essential. It all washes down easily enough, though the glass shard in the liquor is the show’s daring – and damning – nod to policing ineptitude, James Quinn and Peter Wight as bent coppers Phil and Nige, who luxuriate in their laziness and corruption, and seem positively blasé about causing a fatal pile-up while napping on patrol. Bitter satire amid the froth; here’s to that.
Until Sept 15, then touring. Tickets: 0843 208 6000; earlydoorslive.com