Road – Ram & Shackle Pub, Manchester

Writer: Jim Cartwright

Director: Shereen Perera & Amy Ramsden

Reviewer: Matthew Nichols

The Public Reviews Rating:

Ah, student theatre. The unmistakeable whiff of productions flung together with very low budgets, and lots of love and care. Sometimes, it’s terrible. Overly analytical and supposedly radical attempts at forcing concepts on a text that neither need nor demand it. Of course, it can be magic, too. One of the highlights of my theatregoing lifetime was an Edinburgh fringe performance by American high school students. So, it was with mixed feelings that I approached this slightly crazy student ghetto pub to see a promenade performance of Jim Cartwright’s 1980s masterpiece.

I needn’t have worried. This is a fantastic production, steered by two skilled directors who have every confidence in the material and their cast, Manchester University undergraduate actors. Scullery (Josh Goulding) is our host for the evening, and leads us, the audience, through a night out in a sinkhole of a dole-ridden town, all but left for dead. There’s Dor (Emma Fernell) and Lane (Rebecca Cohen), two middle-aged, booze-addled slappers on the pull. And put-upon Valerie (Harriet Smith) and mental Skinlad (Joe Mellor) along the way, too.

Salty, foul-mouthed and unbearably bleak, Cartwright’s play is a faultless piece of writing. It has the best – and funniest – swearing in modern drama, and carves a humane poetry out of the humdrum and the mundane. Surely due a major revival any time now, this production serves the text superbly. Much of the dialogue has been jettisoned, but the promenade format works superbly well, and the evening flows beautifully. The pub itself is the perfect backdrop for this motley crew of rag-tag chancers, and the cast and their directors clearly love them. Shereen Perera and Amy Ramsden’s direction is remarkably assured, and hugely ambitious. Given a proper budget and production team, they could give some established producing houses a run for their money.

The cast is excellent, also. Joe Mellor is a wonderfully wound knot of rage as the disillusioned Eddie, and Abbie Wilcox and Sam Hughes hurl abuse at each other with relish. Rebecca Cohen, Emma Fernell and Harriet Smith are excellent as women on a quest for the unknown, and there is a superb sense of company and ensemble at work. It is Ruby Thompson’s work as Helen and Molly that stands out, though; there is an astonishing confidence in her characterisation and pace, and she sustains these solo sections with poise and class.

It’s not a faultless evening, by any means. On a technical note, some of the accents wander, and there are moments where the characterisation is fuzzy. Given the challenge of rehearsing and mounting this production, it’s no surprise that there are moments where it looks as if a few more rehearsals would have paid dividends. But this is nitpicking.

In a city overflowing with theatrical opportunity, it’s genuinely wonderful to be reminded about fresh and emerging talent, and to see it showcased with such confidence and style. Showing at 6pm until Thursday 11th March, this is a brilliant re-imagining of a contemporary classic, which you’d be a fool to miss.