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Day: 13 December 2011

A tribute to Shelagh Delaney

Written by Eve Fensome on . Posted in Theatre.

‘It’s a bugger of a life, by Jesus.’ Shelagh Delaney 1938-2011

Allow me to set the scene. It’s post-war Britain, 1958, The Notting Hill race riots rock London and there is growing support for Sir Oswald Moseley’s fascist movement. The living standards of the middle-class in the South of England are rising while the Northern working-class remain untouched, but the Prime Minister Harold MacMillan nevertheless proudly declares “people have never had it so good”. Homosexuality is illegal and censorship of the media is prevalent. Women are being pushed out of employment and back into the domestic sphere as there is a renewed emphasis placed on the nuclear family and women’s place as wife and mother. Now into this scene a most unlikely character strides up to the spotlight and snatches the microphone: Shelagh Delaney. Unlikely in that not only is Delaney a woman, not only is she exceptionally young at just nineteen years old, but she is also working-class and from Salford, the world of slums, dereliction and continuous grey-skys as depicted by L S Lowry. And so it is even more remarkable that from the depths of this silenced socio-economic stratum of society, Shelagh Delaney’s play A Taste of Honey emerges into the public eye, swearing, kicking and spitting like an intoxicated John Cooper Clarke, it lets out a scream which shakes the 1950s sensibilities to the core. Alcoholism, grinding poverty, homosexuality, profanitys, interracial relationships, single motherhood and prostitution, A Taste of Honey brings everything the 1950s had so neatly swept under the carpet, out into the harsh light of day.

Salford, once industrial capital of the world, but now in 1958, a heartland of over-population, chronic economic depression, crime and poverty. A Taste of Honey showcases the unceasing misery and remorseless hardship of life for the Salford poor. Delaney’s protagonist: a seventeen year old working-class girl, unmarried yet pregnant with a black man’s child is the epitomy of the marginalised and voiceless. And Delaney is the one person uniquely qualified by her background, age and sex, to give her a voice. And what a voice it is. As in her subsequent works, Delaney’s females are not weak and subservient as the cultural landscape would have suggested. They are assertive, shockingly rude and astoundingly resilient. Her characters speak in a harsh Manchester vernacular which reflects the brutality of the landscape, but in the face of the sever depravation of their surroundings, they show intelligence, wit and humanity. This was the working-class that Delaney knew but this was the first time they had been portrayed as such because never before had the voice in the dark come from one of their own.

Beyond the resounding achievement of A Taste of Honey as a play and film, Delaney continued to have success, including her play: The Lion in Love (1961) and her 1967 films The White Bus and Charlie Bubbles. She also wrote the 1985 film: Dance With a Stranger, staring Miranda Richardson and Rupert Everett. In it we see the events leading up to the 1955 execution of Ruth Ellis – the last woman hanged in Britain. The case of Ruth Ellis highlighted the bias of the system in that Ellis was hanged for what she was, not what she had done. Had she not been a working-class scarlet woman, and had the man whom she shot not been from a public school and a middle-class family, her conviction would have been for manslaughter, not murder and thus her sentence would have been prison, not execution. There was a great deal of publicity for the case and so we can be sure that the controversy surrounding it would have been heard by Delaney at the time. It is testament to her strong sense of justice that two decades later she would write a screenplay on the event. Delaney sense of social responsibility also reached beyond her written works to involvement in political campaigns against nuclear proliferation, apartheid in South Africa and the 1967 bombing of North Vietnam.

Shelagh Delaney was born on the 25th of November 1938 and died November the 20th 2011, five days before her 72nd Birthday. She will always be remembered for bringing the plight of the marginalised and working-class into the public eye and with it, a little more goodness to the world, for otherwise, as the closing line of A Lion in Love observes: “It’s a bugger of a life, by Jesus.”

My cup of tea

Written by Alice Williamson on . Posted in Theatre.

Four out of five stars

Not My Cup of Tea has as its backdrop the estranged society of 1970s England – an idealistic and somewhat naïve group of young people who in the spirit of the blossoming ‘hippy age’ reject the mentalities and lifestyles of their predecessors. But this is a play as much of hypocrisies as of definitions, with no indulgent reminiscing of the years of free love and change, but a provoking personal drama of the consequences of living in a self-created ‘idyll’, to which much credit must be due to the writer and director Polly Goss.

The first half of the play was rather slow, and there was a slight confusion at the interval as to what exactly had happened. However, its presence was certainly not unnecessary through the successful and often amusing introduction to our central characters.

The first half also saw Merlin Merton’s beautifully made film which not only lit the play up through the power of another medium, but had moments of real artistic excellence. Generally the use of media was very effectively used throughout the play, and an excellent example of the power of music in theatre. And all this could not have been without the truly superb supporting roles of Sophie Ellerby, Joe Mellor and Laurence Williams as the darkly witty ‘Victor’ who realised and openly brought out the more philosophical elements of the play.

But the play’s real power is in its almost undefined nature – we may superficially be seeing the upheavals of a certain generation, but in its unrestricted philosophy the play’s messages are a powerful testimony to confusion of what it is to live.

Not My Cup of Tea ran at the Thaw Studio between 23rd and 25th November as part of Manchester Drama Society’s Autumn Showcase

How to Solve with revolvers

Written by Rosie Panter on . Posted in Theatre.

Four stars out of five

I have always been a little sceptical of student theatre fearing amateur performances and cheap costumes. However, after seeing Solve these misconceptions have been dispelled. This piece of new writing left me feeling shocked, upset, and even at times full of laughter. The play centres upon the idea of a world, not unlike our own, which is heavily overpopulated.  In order to solve this problem a brutal regime has been put in place: a regime in which strangers are called up to effectively, kill one another. Most of the play takes place in the waiting room, as characters wait their turn to enter the room in which they must kill, or be killed. The fact that the plot is so relevant to our own time makes this play that much more poignant, causing the audience to dwell on possible solutions for our own overpopulation problem.

The relevance of Solve to our own worries and apprehensions is perhaps due to its position as a piece of new writing, written by a second year drama student at the University of Manchester. Ali Michael who plays the leading role, Edward, in this harrowing tale states that ‘Piers has been writing this play for nearly 8 months now. It has been a massive project for him especially considering that it is such a complex and dark concept for a play. But after months of toil the finished product is truly remarkable for a 20 year old. Having watched it from its infancy I am hugely proud and quite awe-struck by the finished article.’ The play is indeed, well written and complex – as a second year student myself, it is inspiring to see what students can and do achieve. The themes of this play were so resonant with the audience that long after the play had ended, these topics continued to be discussed, most prominently where the well being of the greater good overtakes our own personal morality.

Most of the action in the first half of the play is off stage, as the audience is left to watch the tensions that play out in the waiting room. The tension on stage mirrors the tension that pervaded in the audience when characters left to enter the solving room, leaving the audience to wonder what will happen to these characters, who will survive. This tension led to some incredibly poignant moments, for example when Jasmine and Robert, a couple, were requested to enter the solving room together a few members of the audience were left in tears. Alongside the use of off stage action, the play employs the use of bright lighting. A blinding white light was used to signify the fact that a gun has been shot, this left the audience startled and confused, just like the deeply immoral system that this play conveys.  Alex Simmons portrayal of the sinister, deeply disturbing Gregory was fantastic, terrifically highlighting the aggression of this society.

For me sadly, the second half of the play failed to convey the tension and excitement of the first half, focusing instead on the interrogation of Edward by the police, and yet, it was effective in conveying the deep rooted corruption of the system. The dialogue between Edward and the two policemen was uncomfortable, sometimes steering towards a somewhat fantastical critique of the police force. However, the main themes continued to keep the audience gripped.

After watching Solve I am a convert to student theatre and undoubtedly will be going to watch more of it, and would compel others to do the same.