Our Friends In The North is the play, before the TV 1996 production which kick-started the career of Daniel Craig, that tells of the corrupt society of 1960s and 1970s Tyneside and London. The play is now 37 years old and has had only one professional revival, and so, as playwright Peter Flannery so rightly pointed out, we were watching something unique and an almost forgotten piece of theatre history.
It's a long play, there is no getting around that - and with the first act lasting a whole 90 minutes, there needs to be much happening on stage to hold your attention and keep you stimulated.
The set design (Abby Clarke) reminded me very much of the then avant-garde movement in the 1950s staging Shakespeare plays on multi-levelled podia. It was visually unstimulating but served its purpose. A long line of large diameter wire meshing was employed along the back against an off-white cyc. This worked better as it not only tied in nicely to the play's subject matter but could also be seen as a city skyline too. A nice touch.
Our Friends In The North centres around a Geordie named Geordie, and the people he comes into contact with. There are three main themes omnipresent within the play and each scene chops and changes through each theme in what could be described as TV Serial style, not allowing the audience more than a few minutes to concentrate on one scene or plot-line. It is very cinematic in that respect, but makes for awkward and quick scene changes and quick-wittedness on the part of the viewer to keep up. (since the set remained virtually constant throughout). The themes are police corruption, The Rhodesian oil embargo and civil war, and the well-documented housing scandal of the 60s and 70s. All three wrapped in a blanket of politics, and are all real cases, but were not necessarily interconnected or even related the way the play suggests. Perhaps the play is a curio these days and hardly ever produced because these scandals have either been forgotten or lost their potency, or maybe it is because the play is over-long and no longer relevant to our modern society.
My over-riding criticism of this particular production is the lack of dynamicism and change of pace. Much of this is due to the nature of the writing, but I must also lay this at the feet of director Kate Coogan. All the entrances and exits - of which there were hundreds - were all done at the same pace with little or no variation in the light / heavy or soft / hard dimensions. In almost the entire play - all 150 minutes of it - no-one moved any quicker than a smart walk even when faced with gunfire, war, or trying to run from the police. This same lack of dynamic filtered through into the body language and demeanors of the cast too, and so much of the play was spoken within the same acceptable variable with no-one whispering malevolently and no-one screaming in either fear or joy. The whole play simply 'happened' without any real fanfare or blaze. Even the final sequence - with a touch of the Tarantino - failed to have any impact at all since the scene cut to DBO just at the crucial cathartic moment and the play ended very abruptly and unsatisfyingly.
All the cast - and it was quite a large cast too - worked extremely well however and made the best of what they were given. I wasn't convinced at all with some of the Geordie accents, but the London, RP and other accents were far more successful generally.
With a cast of 19, all final year students at Manchester School Of Acting, their commitment to the piece was total, and although majority were playing characters much older than themselves - in fact having to age 15 years from beginning to end of the play as well - was no mean feat at all, and some managed this with a little more success than others, but overall, the whole cast made their characters relatable, flawed, and most importantly, truthful. It would be wrong of me perhaps to single any one actor out, as many played more than one role throughout the production too, but perhaps I shall anyway: for having the most charisma and stage presence, and for finding that the level of the play lifted just a small notch on his every entrance as this character, I have to credit Sam Black as gangland boss Barrett.
Other extremely noteworthy portrayals came from Conor McCready (Geordie), Adam Mackie (Donohue), Dylan Brady (Joseph), and Eloise Westwood (Rusty). But I am now doing what I said I wouldn't, and indeed praise and commendation should go to all. It was a hard watch which more change of pace and idea of place would have helped to ameliorate. It was also too long, and I can fully understand why it might have worked better on screen than it does on stage.
Reviewer - Matthew Dougall
on - 1/3/19
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