HOBSON'S CHOICE. To 16 April.

York

HOBSON'S CHOICE
by Harold Brighouse

Theatre Royal To 16 April 2005
Tue-Sat 7.30pm
Runs 2hr 25min One interval

TICKETS: 01904 623568
www.yorktheatreroyal.co.uk
Review: Timothy Ramsden 9 April

Kaler defrocked as comic King Lear.
Regular Theatre Royal panto Dame Berwick Kaler comes back relieved of his bloomers to give a highly comic Henry Horatio Hobson, British, middle-class and proud of it. Yorkshire does this Lancashire comedy (first seen in wartime Hammersmith) proud.

Director Gregory Floy, a core voice in the remarkable renaissance of Colchester's Mercury Theatre, brings a sense of purpose to this one-time old warhorse and rep standby (Hobson, that is, not Kaler). Helped by Lili Rogue's skeletal cage set, with its elements of realistic furnishings, Floy reveals the story of an over-confident shoe-maker outwitted by his eldest daughter as a parable of the new ousting the old.

In the cage-like confinement piled shoe-boxes and the counter which gives Hobson's serving daughters little space speak of tradition, as do the costumes (Hobson criticises the fashionable dressing of the daughters he dominates while believing himself much put-upon by them). Yet there's also an openness, a sense of new life breathing through without being stifled by the dead-weight of tradition.

Maggie is a new-style entrepreneur, economical where Hobson is mean, ready to splash out if it will yield dividends. As she does in marrying lowly workman Will Mossop. But there's human feeling too in Emma Gregory's restrained, thoughtful performance. Her sharp It needn't silencing her sisters' insistence love must include courtship is balanced by her visibly plucking up courage to approach Will and the moment she takes to absorb his declaration of non-love.

Kaler is predictably fine, though he relies on mug-to-audience reactions for laughs at times. But his gritty voiced expostulation, like his nervousness when a premium customer praises an underling in his presence, strike home at Hobson as the man living in the past, on his reputation.

From the start David Shelley's Will has a firm frame. But his uncertain face, its features ready to collapse under pressure, devoid of self-belief, show why he's been kept under. Shelley's growth in confidence, details like the hand nervously ironing his trouser-leg during his wedding-breakfast, the way his mind seems to grow into his physical strength, make this a subtle interpretation in a strong production.

Alice Hobson: Elianne Byrne
Vickey Hobson: Miranda Floy
Maggie Hobson: Emma Gregory
Albert Prosser: Justin Grattan
Henry Hobson: Berwick Kaler
Mrs Hepworth: Christine Cox
Tubby Wadlow: Colin Higgins
William Mossop: David Shelley
Jim Heeler: Keith Ladd
Ada Figgins: Kathryn Nutbeem
Fred Beenstock: Rory Dan Wilder
Dr MacFarlane: Robert Pickavance

Director: Gregory Floy
Designer: Lili Rogue
Lighting: Helen Morley
Composer/Arranger: Christopher Madin
Fight director: Philip D' Orleans
Assistant director: David Wike

2005-04-11 03:09:46