THE ACCRINGTON PALS. To 29 March.

Leeds

THE ACCRINGTON PALS
by Peter Whelan

West Yorkshire Playhouse (Quarry Theatre) To 29 March 2003
Mon-Sat 7.30pm Mat Thu & Sat 2pm
Audio-described: 11 March
Runs 2hr 40min One interval

TICKETS 0113 213 7700
www.wyp.org.uk
Review: Timothy Ramsden 8 March

A bright and bold revival of a fine play that repays repeated viewings.This is a young director's account of Peter Whelan's poetically concentrated story of the Great War battalion 700 pals from the Lancashire mill-town Accrington who went to war in 1914, and were largely exterminated in battle two years later. What's missing here in dramatic nuancing of character is made up for in clarity and theatrical boldness: Rebecca Gatward is a very confident young director.

In this dour post-Victorian working-town, May sets out her fruit-stall before winter dawn to catch early factory trade. Emotion can barely speak its name among these hard lives. The play's tragedy stretches from first line to last; having lost the unacknowledged love of her life Tom, to war, May remains unable to inherit his vision of the army as a new communal society where money is unnecessary. She's forever measuring life in terms of costs.

Liz Cooke's design for the spacious audience-wrapped Quarry thrust stage is backed by ramshackle ramparts that are at once the jerry-built detritus of 19th century industrial housing and war-trench bulwarks, linking the two worlds. In Whelan's play these are strangely inverted: Tom at the front develops his utopian social vision while at home May struggles in a fiercely competitive world.

Home front and battle-line play off against each other as young Eva, in tatty Britannia rig (her shield a painted dustbin-lid), stands on the ramparts for a fund-raising concert rendition of 'O Peaceful England' as the Pals, below, set-out on a daylight suicide advance on enemy positions, flashes and gunfire drowning Eva's timid voice.

For once, showing the human emotions under the surface can be indiscreet rather than subtle. Jane Hazlegrove risks this indiscretion but maintains a tough integrity that keeps her performance the right side of ingratiating. The production gives full voice to the range of emotionally-battered, distraught characters. Political fury has its backyard equivalent in Whelan's women surely among the most complex, satisfying female parts written by a modern male playwright. All are superbly played.

Adam Silverman's lighting intensifies unnaturally around the mixed reality and symbolism of Malcolm Scates' CSM. Scates rightly keeps the straight-backed authoritative stance and confident voice as his character shifts from determined, paternalist recruiter to unreal death-figure.

May: Jane Hazlegrove
Tom: Greg Haiste
Arthur: Simon Walter
Reggie: Dominic Hecht
Ralph: Tom Lister
Eva: Zoe Henry
Annie: Meriel Scholfield
Sarah: Kate Williamson
Bertha: Samantha Power
CSM Rivers: Malcolm Scates
The Accrington Pals: Paul Barrow, Jonathan Miller, Lee Nicholson, Alex Oldroyd, Tom Pitman, John Steele

Director: Rebecca Gatward
Designer: Liz Cooke
Lighting: Adam Silverman
Sound: Mic Pool
Musical Director: Simon Walter
Voice and Dialect coach: Neil Swain

2003-03-10 13:17:54