THE GLEE CLUB. To 23 March.
London
THE GLEE CLUB
by Richard Cameron
Bush Theatre To 23 March 2002
Runs 2hr 15min One interval
TICKETS 020 7610 4224
Review Timothy Ramsden 4 March
Transfers to the Duchess Theatre 17 April 2002
Tickets 0870 890 1103
A finely-sculpted view of six lives on the verge of change, in an immaculate production.The Bush celebrates 30 years of new plays with this story about Yorkshire miners 40 years ago. There's enough of a gap between West London 1972 and West Riding 1962, never mind the decades since. It's not just the way these men cling to part-singing in the age of rock 'n' roll that marks out their traditionalism. It's an age of shabby sex, with voyeurs in the fields around the pit, when the women's struggle meant getting the man to marry you if he wants the hot meal and warm bed.
Aided by Mike Bradwell's terrific production, where detail is so skilfully deployed you don't notice the dots joining up, just seeing the big picture emerge with stupendous clarity, Cameron shows individual human natures tearing at his singers' solidarity.
David Schofield's Bant seethes with jealous rage at the tea merchant who's taken his wife. Nowadays, we'd call it low self-esteem, represented in his grotesque musical drag (as in she-dragon) act for the concert-party. Destructive fury concentrates in Schofield's features as his mind locks into a violence intensified by self-loathing.
But it's the Club's leader whose fall from the podium of grace triggers much of the play. Bamber's Phil might have 'gay' stamped all over his hesitant, soft-spoken manner, but in a 1962 pit village the idea that one of us could be one of them was beyond comprehension. These are men who've shared the pit showers. And it's James Hornsby's Jack, organising a petition against the rumours about Phil, who registers the shocking revelation most angrily.
There's room too for Roderick Smith's quiet widower, engaged in his middle-aged search for a woman to love, without rejecting his own children, taken into care. Smith gives a beautifully understated performance that's in no way an understatement.
Or there's young Colin, the sole one into guitars and new music. His joking mates kid him there's a talent-scout interested in him, with tragic consequences. But Colin survives to tell us directly how the older men have gone alongside all their generation and its way of life.
Phil Newsome: David Bamber
Jack Horsfall: James Hornsby
Colin Wrigglesworth: Oliver Jackson
Scobie: Shaun Prendergast
Bant: David Schofield
Walt Hemmings: Roderick Smith
Director: Mike Bradwell
Designer: Bruce Macadie
Lighting: Rick Fisher
Sound: Ben Smith
Musical Director: Mia Soteriou
2002-03-06 13:12:01