Box of Tricks is a Manchester based theatre company that prides itself in telling Northern stories made by and for Northern people. In How Soon is Now they celebrate 20 years of theatre-making with a play by Siân Owen that celebrates the Manchester club scene while telling more of these uncompromising stories.
It is perhaps only fair to mention that the title acquired an ironic twist at the performance reviewed here, as its start was delayed by some 30 minutes due to unspecified technical problems, so it is possible that some of the sound issues mentioned below may or may not be attributable to this.
The story is set on New Year’s Eve as 1997 gives way to ‘98, and most of the action takes place in and around a nightclub called Deja Vus’, thereby immersing everything in a soundtrack of post-punk, indie and Britpop. This musical landscape, arranged and designed by Vidar Norheim, is partly played and sung live on stage by the cast, and partly as source music pumping from the speakers in the club. Darragh Cowley plays DJ Spin Jim, whose Emcee-like presence swirls around the action. Sometimes he is spinning the decks, but for much of the play he weaves among the other performers, dancing and addressing the audience with almost poetic narrative, delivered in Manchester’s characteristically melodic accent.
The show has high ambitions in delivering two very different, challenging storylines interwoven together and presented amidst a sea of nostalgia. As we are reminded in the narration, the year that is coming to a close here has seen New Labour come into power and shown people new ways to express grief publicly following the death of a princess. These are times when, despite all the messages of hope, there are still those struggling with their own personal demons. In the club we meet Angie and Polly, a couple who should have everything to be happy about, so why is Angie so stressed out? It is not until well into Act II that we discover the impact that what she has experienced at work is having on her. Kaitlin Akinpelumi gives a strong performance as Angie, but the revelation is Laura Robinson, whose professional stage debut here as Polly is extraordinary.
Meanwhile, Bethan McLean plays Jean, who is looking forward to escaping her existence packing chickens in a Welsh factory and bringing in a new year in Manchester with her boyfriend Carl. Unfortunately it rapidly becomes clear that Carl is pathologically controlling and has Jean in his coercive grip. Theo Woolford gives a convincing performance as Carl, albeit slightly diluted by his frequent shifts into a second role as drummer in the onstage band (which along with Cowley is completed by L J Willow in a supporting musical part). McLean however gives a beautifully nuanced depiction of someone whose autonomy has been stripped away, in a character that almost blends Little Voice with Letter to Brezhnev’s Teresa.
The key power of the narrative is in the way it interweaves the stories of these three young women together, and director Adam Quayle certainly succeeds in keeping these threads taut whilst winding them around each other.
Where the show struggles though is in its own identity crisis, pitched as it is somewhere in a grey area between a play with songs and musical theatre. Given the prominence of The Smiths in the soundtrack and the nature of the storylines, you could be forgiven for expecting ‘Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now’ to pop up at any moment. Instead there comes the redemptive element of ‘There Is a Light That Never Goes Out’, and the message that seems to punch through the murky darkness of this midwinter night is one of the hope of human resilience and friendship, which is represented by the power of dancing together in a steamy basement.
A succession of music that defined these times certainly brings with it a sense of nostalgia (most powerfully perhaps when we hear the opening glockenspiel of Radiohead’s ‘No Surprises’) but somehow five actors dancing together on Hannah Sibbai’s sparse set fails to convey the unbridled energy of a New Year’s Eve. More problematic is the balance of voices and music, which makes both the pertinent song lyrics and, more importantly, much of the spoken dialogue, very difficult to hear – especially in the first act. The music is already memorable in its own right, but this show is memorable chiefly for four central performances, from the emotions of McLean, Robinson and Akinpelumi, to the mesmeric sorcery of Cowley.
How Soon is Now, which premiered at The Lowry on 1st October, is now touring ten venues, with dates booking through to 7th November.
Star Rating: Three stars ★★★
Production photography by Chris Payne
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| Laura Robinson, Theo Woolford, LJ Willow, Kaitlyn Akinpelumi, & Darragh Cowley |
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| Kaitlyn Akinpelumi, Bethan Mclean & Laura Robinson |
This review was originally written for and published by Musical Theatre Review
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