ON A SHOUT. To 16 February.

Hull.

ON A SHOUT
by Dave Windass

Hull Truck Theatre To 16 February 2008.
Mon-Sat 8pm Mat 9 Feb 2pm.
BSL signed 8 Feb.
Runs 2hr 15min One interval.

TICKETS: 01482 323638.
www.hultruck.co.uk
Review: Timothy Ramsden 31 January.

Worth calling in On A Shout.
There are good plays, bad plays - and Hull Truck plays. Hull theatregoers seem clear what they want: drama that’s upfront, down-to-earth, shows the lives of ordinary people (if sometimes in un-ordinary circumstances), is warm-hearted and restrains sentimentality within a gritted-teeth manner.

There’s a lot of narration (here, Edward Peel, playing the central character, seems to spends as much time watching or narrating as doing). Stories bump along, with circumstantial detail developed for comic purposes and key events mentioned briefly in flashback. And deep feelings are often shown through the high “shit” quotient in a script.

Hull, England’s eastern-most city, is at the centre of things compared with Spurn Point, a crooked finger of land stretching into the water where the River Humber meets the North Sea. With all its winds and tides, Spurn Point has England’s only full-time Lifeboat team.

Writer Dave Windass has taken his notebook and recorder to this edge of the land. After his play Sully, whose rugby hero united the city’s halves, Windass now insults most places within easy reach. Hull itself, Goole, Grimsby, the villages oif Cottingham and Dunswell, all come under the lash of his pen. They should be thankful that at least they’re not Withernsea.

For the Lifeboat crew their life’s compulsive – none go holidaying at the seaside, but George’s empty feeling at retiring is clear. The job’s all-consuming, not only in the obvious, dangerous way. Like several recent Truck plays, this one dips from present to past: George’s dad in the War, the loss of a brother, and a lot of balancing laughs. David Barrass shows the unassuming Len, who’s quietly saved many lives, and, in the 1970s Ronald, whose physical exercises compensate for an inability to face his wife when speaking to her.

Unsubtle and emotionally manipulative this can all be. But, from Peel, authoritative with George’s experience-based wisdom, to Laura Doddington showing the first female crew-member more than ready for male idiocy, and the intense love that brought George’s mother into the lifeboat world, this is a fine popular tribute to people forever awaiting the shout from wild waters.

Portuguese/Len/Ronald Rix: David Barrass.
Jo/Louise/Pam: Laura Doddington.
George: Edward Peel.
Cooky/Albert/Eddie: Richard Standing.
Dobbo/Barry/Young George: Matthew Stathers.

Director: Gareth Tudor Price.
Designer: Richard Foxton.
Lighting: Graham Kirk.
Sound: Matt Thompson.
Composer: Stuart Briner.

2008-02-04 00:10:09