Looking for an escape? Have one for the Road
Like so many indoor activities, going to the theatre has been a big miss in the past 18 months or so. HANNAH GRAHAM decided to see what Newcastle’s Northern Stage had to offer now the curtain has gone back up again
EIt’s hard not to see parallels of today’s world of shortages, rising prices and benefits cuts
VERYONE’S broke, things look bleak – even deliveries of food are being missed. Hard to picture now, I know, but this is the 1986 world of Jim Cartwright’s Road, vividly directed for Northern Stage by Natalie Ibu.
This acclaimed play has been transported from its original Lancashire setting to the North East, and in the hands of a skilful cast, it becomes, quite apart from anything else, a glorious celebration of the Geordie accent.
It’s also a reflection on poverty, death and aging – all while being a lot more fun than that might sound. Plus there’s a disco in the interval.
The play explores the lives of people living on a road that’s seen better days. Those who had jobs have lost them and poverty has made what feels like an almost physical mark on the characters.
But it’s alright, because everyone’s off to the pub.
As Road begins, our narrator/compare/chorus, drunken homeless charmer Scullery (played with a twinkle in his eye by Michael Hodgson), pointedly takes off a blue disposable face mask and throws it in the bin, as ‘Somewhere Over The Rainbow’ plays. Perhaps it’s meant as a signal that we’re not in Kansas (i.e. pandemic-ravaged 2021) anymore. But as the show continues, I come to think that it’s more an invitation to do just what the inhabitants of the unnamed road do: forget, just for a moment, what’s going on around you – even if, ultimately, you can’t get away from it.
In Road, everyone’s looking for an escape, whether that’s in sex, booze, Buddhist meditation, music or chips.
There are moments of real, proper hilarity that have much of the audience howling.
Then there are monologues so powerful you could hear a pin drop in the room as we sit, transfixed and horrified.
The story is told in individual vignettes, mostly told from inside one room of the fabulous doll’s house-like set. Brilliantly designed by Amelia Jane Hankin, this gives us a glimpse into homes, lives, and several fantastically horrible 80s sofas.
But much like the people who call the road home, the action can’t be contained and spills out not just on to the ‘road’ part of the stage but in among the audience, who are delighted to be offered chips and then duck as insults are thrown over their heads by a warring couple.
I don’t know if every part of the 35-year-old play works quite as well as it once might have – a scene of, essentially, sexual assault on a man too drunk to consent makes me uncomfortable as it’s initially played for laughs, despite turning more serious later on.
Ibu says she wants to “explore the intersectionality between race, class and gender” and while it’s fantastic to see a talented, diverse cast telling this working-class story (how often have we seen working-class communities inaccurately presented as all white?) I don’t know if the script is necessarily able to achieve this aim.
But it’s hard not to see the parallels to today’s world of shortages, rising prices and benefits cuts throughout the show.
Looking at the little segments of homes that make up the set I can’t help but think of what we’ve all been through in lockdown, trapped in our own homes and on our own roads, realising, as the characters who make up this most down-on-its-luck neighbourhood already knew, the importance of our communities to help us find joy in deeply bleak times.
It’s hard to pick out a star from a strong cast, but I feel compelled to mention Ike Bennett, whose intense performance as a young man who turns his disaffection into a sort of hunger strike powerfully signals a turn into darkness ahead of the second act.
That this turn is immediately followed by an internal disco that has audience members up and dancing at their seats in no way undermines its darkness.
In properly exploring ambiguity, in sadness and exhilaration going handin-hand, I believe this performance dodges patronising stereotypes and feels fresh and alive. A climactic final scene filled with both hope and desperation sends shivers down my spine. I’ve spoken to some who weren’t such fans, but for me this play did what I’ve so missed theatre’s ability to do: utterly absorbed me in the world portrayed on stage.
The characters of Road are warm and angry; generous and mean-spirited; funny and foul-mouthed; lonely and connected; filled with joy and depression.
They’ll certainly offer you a warm welcome back to Northern Stage’s main auditorium after such a long closure. I highly recommend joining them. n Road, said to be suitable for those aged 14-plus, opened on Friday,
October 8 and will run at the theatre until October 30. Buy tickets online at
Northern Stage.