ONCE UPON A TIME IN WIGAN - LIVE! To 28 June.
Bolton
ONCE UPON A TIME IN WIGAN - LIVE!
by Mick Martin.
Octagon Theatre To 28 June 2008.
Mon-Sat 7.30pm.
Runs 2hr 20min One interval.
TICKETS: 01204 520661.
www.octagonbolton.co.uk
High-point ending to a high-class season.
This wasn’t even meant to be the culmination of the Octagon’s 40th anniversary season, but with Just A Gigolo jiggering off somewhere, Mick Martin’s Northern Soul play provides an exhilarating conclusion to a year’s theatre which has shown Mark Babych’s Octagon to be among the most exciting, resourceful regional playhouses in the land, taking major drama in its stride and reflecting both the traditional and newly multicultural town around it.
Mick Martin’s play celebrates the Saturday all-nighters at Wigan Casino. From 1972 for nearly a decade these were the mecca, fulcrum and focal-point of young people from all around. None more so than Danny, ace dancer and Northern Soul record collector. Nobody and nothing can replace Northern Soul Saturdays for Danny.
Martin’s early scenes celebrate the Casino, leaving later ones to develop and mop-up themes and events. It creates an imbalance, never explaining why the Casino closes, something presented in posters and surprisingly little discussed by the onstage aficionados. Yet this closing-down leaves Danny waking up to the northern eighties: no job, no money except from selling his prized collection. It’s here Eugene, inducted by him into the scene years before, shows a friendship deeper-rooted than any boy-girl relationship in the play.
Danny’s even doubtful girls should be allowed on the all-nighter floor; it could be a very male scene. Yet, for Suzanne, dancing all through the night is an attempt to belong, to fill an empty existence fraught with seriously lacking self-confidence. Laura Bonnah catches her hopeful, quietly desperate smile and slightly over-emphatic gesturing perfectly, as Richard Oldham does the earnestness of Danny’s Northern Soul enthusiasm.
So thoroughly do the actors populate the stage, it’s a surprise when the curtain-call shows only four of them. Rupert Hill has all Eugene’s bland confidence and immaturity, while Rokhsaneh Ghawam-Shahidi’s Maxine, entering as the foul-mouthed angel Eugene so adores, then leaving by the same steps, the only one with maturity and purpose enough to move on, is a beautiful portrayal. Add the balcony band, on a mock-up Casino stage, and this is a lively, moving, popular climax to a bold theatrical season.
Danny: Richard Oldham.
Suzanne: Laura Bonnah.
Maxine: Rokhsaneh Ghawam-Shahidi.
Eugene: Rupert Hill.
Band:
Keyboard/Vocals: Howard Gray.
Trumpet/Vocals: Shirley Darroch.
Tenor Saxophone/Vocals: Rebelah Hughes.
Bass Guitar/Vocals: Adam Keast.
Trombone/Vocals: Paul Kissaun.
Guitar/Vocals: Paul Mannion.
Drums: Francis Tucker.
Director: Mark Babych.
Designer: Richard Foxton.
Lighting: Brent Lees.
Sound: Andy Smith.
Musical Director: Howard Gray.
Choreographer: Sandy Holt.
2008-06-27 19:19:44