HOBSON'S CHOICE. To 5 July.

Manchester

HOBSON'S CHOICE
by Harold Brighouse

Royal Exchange Theatre To 28 June 2003 Extended to 5 July 2003
Mon-Fri 7.30pm Sat 8pm Mat Wed 2.30pm & Sat 4pm
Audio-described 7 June 4pm
After show discussion 26 June
Runs 2hr 20min One interval

TICKETS: 0161 833 98933
www.royalexchange.co.uk
Review: Timothy Ramsden 23 May 23, 2003

Manchester does proud by a play whose lyrical height is a shared 'ee, lad'/'' ee, lass' and which ends its action with a hearty Well, by gum.'There's something of the King Lear about Hobson a domineering old man losing power, with three uppish' daughters except the old boot and shoe seller finds salvation through the oldest, toughest - Maggie. Trevor Peacock, always strong on reason and vulnerability, is excellent as the later acts' crumbling old man. His verbal tussle with Alistair Cording's MacFarlane registers in its centre-stage force with unusual clarity. Hobson's still happier dealing with men than women.

Earlier, Peacock suggests weakness under the bluster - perhaps too much. The voice is fine, gravel-like and complaining. But he's over-gestural, a clown-like aspect all three daughters would have locked on to as weakness.

Joanna Riding's a chip off the Hobson block, but with a youthful purposefulness undented by reaching 30 as her father's unpaid shop-manager. It's in the straight back and calmly forceful speech the control of someone who's thought ahead what the other side will say, just as she can see the potential in shy shoe-maker Will Mossop. There's determination on her face, but tension too as she waits her man's first response to attack from her father.

Maggie's never more a Hobson than in her last-act confrontation with Will over the new name for the combined businesses. This being comedy, Hobson never gains Lear's tragic insight, and ambles off defeated. Maggie, though, comes up with a realisation of her new man's strength.

Though his loud suit's overdone (Maggie and he are still making their way, not splashing out in the final act) John Thomson's a fine Will. His large-frame points up Mossop's nervousness, though there's barely no sign he's making an effort when he returns Hobson's first-act strapping with the last-act, Maggie-inspired, verbal pistol-whipping.

Johanna Bryant's setting creates a raised platform; people step-up to enter Hobson's - all wrought-iron glamour and curlicue decoration for the shop, bare wood for private areas. It makes Will's Oldfield Road premises, at stage-floor level, seem like the cellar it is. An awkward logic of entrances for the last act's a small price to pay. Overall, any criticism's outweighed by the strengths of Braham Murray's understanding production.

Alice Hobson: Harri Earthy
Vickey Hobson: Kirsten Parker
Maggie Hobson: Joanna Riding
Albert Prosser: Jack Lord
Henry Horatio Hobson: Trevor Peacock
Mrs Hepworth: Ann Aris
Timothy (Tubby) Wadlow: Colin Prokter
Willie Mossop: John Thomson
Jim Heeler: Roland Oliver
Ada Figgins: Victoria Brazier
Fred Beenstock: Chris Hannon
Dr MacFarlane: Alistair Cording

Director: Braham Murray
Designer: Johanna Bryant
Lighting: Jason Taylor
Sound: Steve Brown
Dialect coach: William Conacher

2003-05-26 13:14:34