THE FARM. To 1 June.

London

THE FARM
by Nell Leyshon

Southwark Playhouse To 8 June 2002
Runs 2hrs One interval

TICKETS 020 7620 3494
Review Ian Willox 16th May

Small scale productions can cruelly reveal any deficiencies in writing or performance; this production transcends all these dangers. Hidden away in the concrete and brick urbanity of London, Southwark Playhouse offers a tale of rural tragedy; The Farm (already broadcast on BBC Radio 4) is first in a series of three Nell Leyshon plays exploring rural change in Somerset.

It’s set in the kitchen of a small ex-dairy farm still bleeding from BSE and the foot and mouth cull. They now farm pigs that cost £60 to rear and fetch £54 at market. A shoebox of unpaid bills sits on the kitchen table. The farm can only last a few more weeks.

Three generations cope with this final disaster in their different ways. The grandfather - Brian McDermott in rollicking good form - clutches tight to his memories, terrified of forgetting the name of a field, a cow or a lover. His daughter in law Rose tries to care for him, fend off the creditors and cope with the chasm opening between her husband Vic, blindly working all hours yet driving the farm deeper into debt, and their son Gavin, who takes a job at the local supermarket in a desperate effort to bring some real money into the farm.

But it is supermarket culture that has brought the farm to its knees. As Vic says, people don’t want farms like his anymore: “They want their meat cheap, never mind how it’s raised, how it’s killed. They want to eat things their grandparents never knew existed, and they don’t even want to wait till they’re in season. They know nothing about food.”

The Farm is not a polemic or a rant. It is a deceptively simple and moving story of the slumbering, undemonstrative passion that farm folk have for their land, their animals and, finally, for themselves. It is, in the end, a love story that catches you unawares, wonderfully written and perfectly acted. And it may make you think twice about your trip to the supermarket.

Rose Maggie Tagney
Edmond Brian McDermott
Vic John Peters
Gavin William Bateman
Sue Julie Hobbs

Director Sean Aita
Designer Marsha Roddy
Lighting Ned Dahl

2002-05-22 00:04:51