Johnny Vegas Lands Punches in Bitter Riposte to Thatcher's Britain
At the Royal Exchange in Manchester, director Selina Cartmell delivers a giddily theatrical and expansive take on Jim Cartwright's acclaimed 1986 play Road. This production, featuring a standout performance by Johnny Vegas, serves as a powerful and bitter response to the neglect and poverty of Thatcher's Britain, capturing the essence of working-class life in Lancashire during that era.
An Expansive Vision Beyond the Auditorium
Selina Cartmell's vision for Road is deliberately large-scale, too big to be confined within the traditional loop of the auditorium. Utilizing the full height of the in-the-round space, Cartmell sends actors up ladders and has them emerge from the upper level, creating a dynamic and immersive experience. More significantly, the production spills into the wider building before the show and during the interval.
Leslie Travers' set is scattered like post-industrial debris into corners, where early arrivals can witness actors performing sketches of working-class life. These include pre-party preening, a boozy game of darts, and a lost soul wandering with a shopping trolley. This intrusion excites the audience and extends Cartwright's slice-of-life portrait, suggesting the community exists not just around one Lancashire road in 1986, but in and around us all.
Dynamic Performances and Theatrical Intensity
Cartmell's approach to the actors is equally bold, setting them off at a fast simmer and heating them to boiling point. Johnny Vegas, playing the dishevelled Scullery, is both measured and pugnacious, punching out his introductions to a short-fuse cast of characters. The ensemble includes Lesley Joseph as an old dear singing for her supper, and Laura Elsworthy and Lucy Beaumont as girls on the town.
This theatrical intensity does not diminish the sourness of Cartwright's play, which was written in anger at the social conditions of the time. The characters dream of the beauty in Otis Redding's Try a Little Tenderness while locking away their own beauty, with insults coming first, demands for cash second, and friendship hard won.
Fragmentary Structure and Emotional Impact
Road is structured as a collage of unrelated monologues and two-handers, which can sometimes feel like a sequence of audition pieces. Cartmell's actors, including a pre-recorded Tom Courtenay as a man crippled by nostalgia, would effortlessly pass such auditions, but the fragmentary nature makes it easier to be impressed than to deeply care. Nonetheless, the production remains exuberant, abrasive, and giddily theatrical.
As the centrepiece of the Royal Exchange's 50th anniversary season, this staging of Road runs until 14 March, offering a vivid and unflinching look at a pivotal moment in British social history through the lens of Cartwright's enduring play.
