MY FAVOURITE SUMMER. To 21 April.

Tour.

MY FAVOURITE SUMMER
by Nick Lane.

Hull Truck Theatre Tour to 21 April 2007.
Runs: 2hr One interval.
Review: Alan Geary 28 March Nottingham.

A wonderfully funny play about social class, it never patronises its characters or audience.
If you’ve ever had a temporary labouring job you’ll have collided with a Melvin. He’s initially intimidating, a simple-minded yet worldly caveman, with reservations about homosexuality and lots of violent anecdotes; he never bears a grudge. To workmate Dave, an impressionable out-of-work actor with girlfriend problems, he’s larger than life.

From Hull Truck Company, this is a coming-of-age play about the clash of two sub-cultures: the literate, liberal-arty world confronts that of the unskilled artisan. And it’s wonderfully funny.

From the very start, when Dave [a superb performance from Matthew Booth] asks what we think of the set, it’s highly meta-theatrical. He steps in and out of the action, not only as narrator, but to confide in the audience. At times we see hypothetical action, showing the way Dave would have preferred the story to develop.

Melvin is played perfectly by Marc Bolton, who also does Dave’s dad and the pervy and slimy Bob.

Besides playing the sympathetic but unavailable Sarah, who shares a slug-infested flat with Dave, Fiona Wass takes on some well-differentiated females, including Dave’s mum and a good-hearted, one-eyed slapper, known to ex-hubby Melvin as Cyclops.

This is a semi-autobiographical piece from writer/director Nick Lane and it comes over as such. He has an uncanny ear for real people’s speech rhythms - Dave’s mum’s way of repeating everything is totally convincing. And he gives Dave himself some great one-liners - ‘It would ‘ave bin easier pushin’ fog up hill’.

In a play partly about social class, Lane never patronises his characters or his audience.

Melvin: Marc Bolton.
Dave: Matthew Booth.
Sarah: Fiona Wass.

Director: Nick Lane.
Designer/Lighting: Graham Kirk.

2007-03-01 19:56:36