THE SWING LEFT. To 14 July.

Oxford

THE SWING LEFT
by Steven Dykes devised with Unlimited Theatre

The North Wall To 14 July 2007
Runs 2hr 25min One interval
Review: Timothy Ramsden 14 July

Intriguing picture of post-war society with an unfamiliar setting.
As memory merges into history and the views of society underpinning the period are tested and challenged, historians have examined the society created in post-World War II England with microscopic detail.

Steven Dykes and Unlimited Theatre, south from Leeds to help open new arts-space The North Wall in South Parade, Summertown, north Oxford, see a parallel with 1997. There too, a new dawn brought a drizzly day of disillusion. Well, maybe. But the parallel’s thin.

Attlee and co. were trying to redefine society on something like socialist principles. The Blair aim was to adapt his party to an instrument for adopting the ideas that had inspired his immediate predecessors. Though with a more acceptable face, of course.

But as a look at the possibilities and tensions of 1946, this piece eventually comes together as a strong, if limited, social picture. The setting is one of the 20 Civil Resettlement Units that were established to help prisoners of war adjust to civilian life and work, particularly (and separately) to women and authority.

This made the Units, through which thousands passed, potentially political. Men who had fought for a new society, and an electorate that had thrown out the Conservatives despite Winston Churchill’s war leadership, had expectations an impoverished government seeking social change in the teeth of institutional opposition could hardly meet.

Dykes focuses on returnee Roy Prior, a barber’s son (Gareth Kieran Jones a strong centre in an inward, barely-communicating state later conflicts would call Post-Traumatic Stress), his experiences in the camp and with a socially critical brother and sister, Kay and Alan Latimer. The programme calls her a journalist but the script seems to ignore this; both Latimers seem more social butterflies, insulated in their irresponsibility by their comparable affluence.

Generally, the piece shows the strength and weakness of theatre rooted in devising. There’s richness in specific moments, and a vividly-edged individuality to each character, while overall there’s a sense of drift, the lack of purposeful shaping. Best to forget the alleged modern parallel, be patient and learn something of an often-overlooked part of the adjustment to post-war peace.

Roy Prior: Gareth Kieran Jones
Valerie Earnshaw: Sarah Belcher
Henry Longfield: Chris Thorpe
Kay Latimer: Lucy Ellinson
Sylvia Green: Clare Duffy
Alan Latimer: Jon Spooner

Director: Steven Dykes, Joe Spooner
Designer: Emma Williams
Lighting: Ric Mountjoy
Sound: Gareth Fry
Choreography: Sue Freeman, Hannah Dolmansley

2007-07-31 15:42:55