SALT
OF THE EARTH
Greville
Theatre Club at the Barn Theatre Little Easton
25.05.12
This
is Godber in heritage mode; an autobiographical plod through the
postwar years, ending in the miners' battle with Thatcher in the 80s,
when the piece was written.
I'm
not sure that linear chronology, with characters flagging up the year
in slightly forced narration, is the most potent dramatic device. But
the Greville's remarkable revival, produced and directed by Jan Ford,
made the most of the play's undoubted strengths.
The
music, for instance, those "old time records", 78s up in
the attic, was effectively used – from The Trolley Song to Bowie –
and the set, with exquisite simplicity, echoed the misty-eyed view of
the pits, with flying ducks, replaced by Paul's graduation portrait,
the only ornament [design by Richard Pickford and Steve Bradley].
The
story centres on the Parker sisters, and traces their parallel lives
from flirty dances at the Welfare Hall to frosty silence and
isolation. Carol Parradine and Diana Bradley both gave outstanding
performances in these demanding roles. The accent, the attitude, the
clothes [Judy Lee] were all impressively convincing: Annie's raw
grief as she hears of her husband's death, May's stormy love/hate
relationship with her son, the writer, were strongly delineated in
wonderfully sustained character work.
Their
menfolk, the miners, were Adam Thompson as the father, stoically
loyal to the NCB even as it destroyed his health, and Chris Kearney
as Roy, killed underground just as his dream of a paper shop is about
to come true.
Social
mobility is one of the themes of the piece; Paul, good with words,
several degrees at Sussex, leaves home, his friends and his childhood
sweetheart for the Big Smoke. He had too much narration for my taste,
but was engagingly played by Jonathan Scripps, who had a good feel
for Godber's wry humour. Kay, the girl he left behind, was
excellently done by Sonia Lindsey-Scripps. The moment, at the Silver
Wedding, when she first realised that her mortgage and her microwave
were no substitute for her "Milk Tray Man" was typical of a
meticulous exploration of this contradictory character; there was
plenty of fun, too, with early fumblings to the sound of paso doble,
and the alluring promise of a taste of her Terry's Chocolate
Oranges...
She
also played the mysterious Cherry, the metropolitan girl who replaces
Kay in Paul's affections.
Chris
Plumridge was the laddish Tosh [né Edward], and Lynda Shelverton
played a couple of northern neighbours.
This
production was typically painstaking – I admired the stage pictures
– May's first entrance with the [? Silver Cross] pram just one
example – and the freezes – Harry picking up his feet for May's
Bex Bissell.
The
young women shouting down through the rock to their men in the mine
was followed by a nicely expressionistic scene underground.
And
at the end, what ? May and Harry turn sixty ["wi' nowt to look
forward to"]. They share the domestic chores, he does his DIY,
but there'll be no more Paris or Yugoslavia, we suspect, as her
illness and her paranoia take hold. Estranged son Paul turns up on
her birthday, with Cherry, an olive branch and a red rose. But she'll
have none of it, and retires to her room. Then, in a strange coda,
the sisters, long separated by a political tiff, are reunited; the
trip to the Carvery, and the southern girlfriend, are embraced in
what I suspect is an ironic happy ending, with the dramatist as deus
ex machina. No such optimism for the coal industry, which seemed to
believe almost to the ignominious end that "people'll always
need coal". I don't know what became of the Astoria, but this
Welfare Hall is, happily, now a thriving Playhouse, with Pygmalion
playing this week.
Salt
of the Earth's run at the Greville had sold out before opening night,
testament to the reputation of the Greville and its unique
auditorium, if not to the pulling power of Big John Godber.
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