An eloquent staging of Anthony Clavane's award-winning book has much to say about the UK today, and not just Leeds. Mick McCann was at the Carriageworks
Central to this play is the simple question, how do we fulfil our potential? After we've found love or looked after our kith and kin, filled our bellies and established a safe base, it's the great human question. This Red Ladder Theatre Company production asks the question through two individuals based in Leeds during the 1970s, and as a result asks it of the city itself.
This review has the potential to go two ways, do the safe, formulaic, parochial, slightly dull name check of the individuals who came together, a (usually kind) appraisal of their contributions and a quick run through the plot, maybe touching fleetingly on a theme or two. After all, it is community theatre in a regional city.
The second way, and the most likely from me, a writer not a theatre critic, is a pseudo-working-class hero, northern rant about how Britain is set up to enable people from certain socio-economic – and often geographic – backgrounds to achieve, necessarily, at the expense of others. How the UK's third city, Leeds, is underinvested-in, undervalued and under-represented in London, where the world is often evaluated and reflected back to us.
The play was very funny – like a smutty Alan Bennett in places – well written and pacey, the songs strong and relevant, choreography and set design excellent. It was laced with complex and cleverly worked through themes, half of which I probably missed.
Based on some of the subject matter of Anthony Clavane's award winning Promised Land this piece of 'community theatre' would put to shame many professional productions. The amateur cast were brilliant. Talk about art mimicking life: the two leads, Lynsey Jones and Paul Fox, were so good that they must be wondering, just as their characters are, about making a break and pursuing their artistic dreams.
I'd advise caution. Although you have the talent, most successful actors, artists, critics, writers, publishers, comedians, producers, film directors, journalists, makers of popular music, influential people at the BBC etc. come through public schools and Oxbridge. Cultural expression is often strung via connections. Although some others, such as Anthony Clavane, do break through, Britain is not a meritocracy. In Britain 2012, where you are born most often dictates where you will die.
And there lies another of the play's themes, breaking down the walls that act as barriers to our achieving. Be positive, don't be timid, be bold and keep striving. In the words of Leeds United's famous manager Don Revie: 'Keep fighting.'
Here we have the two main characters in a love story, presenting the opposing sides of a northern dilemma. The working class, female lead, Caitlin, sees a Leeds exemplified by Leeds United, full of prejudice and narrow-minded people who lack ambition. The only way she can fulfil her hopes of being a singer-songwriter is to get on the train to London. The middle class, male character, Nathan, sees a city with a rich history, full of potential, opportunity and inspiration, and would rather stay, fight to build and nurture the city, pursuing his dreams of being another of the great Leeds writers.
The nuances and contradictions of this dilemma are played out and explored. Nathan embraces Caitlin's idea of standing and fighting for what you believe in and then feels the disappointment of her leaving him and getting on the train. She sees him as being spineless and lacking ambition whilst he sees her leaving as hypocritical. As she left I wanted to shout, 'Don't worry love, you'll find prejudice and narrow-mindedness down in that there London as well.'
Half of the play is set around 1900 when Leeds had the biggest Jewish community outside London. It's in this period that other main themes are played out. There is a determination to stay and build the 'promised land' but how much should incomers assert themselves? A question faced by any immigrant community. A recurring motif, emotionally embraced by the cast, is that 'Leeds was built by the sweat of strangers'. this is probably truer of Leeds than any other British city bar London, and as the UK's fastest growing city, it still is. Leeds is informed and shaped by 'incomers'. It always was and I hope it always will be.
As the play concludes we discover that Nathan has broken down that wall, succeeded in his quest to become a writer and we are actually watching a play that he wrote.
So to turn to Leeds now; how is the city that 'strangers' built? It is a beautiful, dynamic, independent, exciting, cosmopolitan, multi-cultured, diverse, constantly developing city full of 'high art' and proper art. The list of awards and recognition on Wikipedia includes 'the UK's Favourite City', 'Best Place in Britain to Live', 'the UK's best shopping destination', 'Number One City for Clubbing'. We and the city's ancestors have achieved this despite the London political and cultural elite clinging on to power, money and influence like Gollum at the bottom of a dripping cave stroking a ring.
Like any city on Earth, Leeds still has poverty and alienation but has it nonetheless reached the Promised Land? I'd argue that, like a dream where you can't quite achieve something, you never will reach it. but the striving creates it, on a distant hill and this future will be 'built by the sweat of strangers'.
The Promised Land is at the Carriageworks theatre, Leeds, until tomorrow, Saturday 30 June.
Mick McCann's encyclopaedic How Leeds Changed the World leaves very little out. Read More
انسخ الكود التالى و ضعه فى موقعك او مدونتك.
