OUR HOUSE. To 21 June.
Hull.
OUR HOUSE
by John Godber.
Hull Truck Theatre To 21 June 2008.
Mon-Sat 8pm
Runs 1hr 55min One interval.
TICKETS: 01482 323638.
www.hulltruck.co.uk
Review: Timothy Ramsden 17 June.
Less stately mansion than council estate but a lot of human life is here.
At its 2001 premiere, Our House was a major anniversary production playing on two sites. Now the action merely spills over to one side of Truck’s auditorium. The title could soon apply elegiacally to this Theatre, a shabby tumbledown from which Godber will be marching his troupe to triumph in a brand new building. It’ll do well to have half the old shack’s atmosphere.
The play's also a reminder of early, reputation-building plays like Happy Jack or September in the Rain. Here, too, Godber uses family history. But now it’s in retrospect, as widowed May watches her possessions moved from her right-to-buy ex-council house, going to the home in the sun her teacher-turned-writer son (sound familiar?) has bought, out of money he may not have (a loose end in the story).
Publicity for Our House shows a cheerily mature woman laughing as she holds vacuum-cleaner and teacup, objects summarising a day in her life. Very different from Jacqueline Naylor’s thin, drawn-in May, one of several mismatches between age of actor and character, something Godber as director seems to give scant concern.
It takes something to make May smile, never mind show approval. Her affection for Dicken Ashworth’s Ted is mainly reflected in their refusal to believe anyone else argues as furiously as them. Her row with long-term neighbour Sylvia involves mutual flinging of “sly” as insult at each other’s child.
Such details, like the blandly-painted room of Pip Leckenby’s set, show why Godber gets away with sketchiness in writing and directing characters. These outlines are familiar; they take people seriously, even when they’re comic. And the burden of right-to-buy, with all the homeowner’s costs, goes with a sharp depiction of the new, young neighbours from hell.
Godber’s people tend to spell things out. Yet what’s implied makes the strongest impact: the men’s unwillingness to face up to issues, a sense of failure mixed with unhappy Jack’s success, and these aggressive, consideration-free new neighbours. Comic John shows here, like comic Alan up the road in Scarborough, a keen sense of the menace lying nearby, just outside the bounds of civilised behaviour.
Ted: Dicken Ashworth.
Jack: Matthew Booth.
Sonja/Candice: Annmarie Hosell.
Steve/Les: Lewis Linford.
May: Jacqueline Naylor.
Sylvia/Sharon: Fiona Wass.
Director: John Godber.
Designer: Pip Leckenby.
Lighting: Graham Kirk.
2008-06-21 11:20:42