Nottingham Playhouse
15th February, 2018, matinee
‘It’s work, int it?’
Adam Penford’s inaugural season as
Artistic Director of Nottingham Playhouse is about as varied as you can get:
Broadway musicals, new writing, modern classics and accessibly innovative
co-productions. First up is the regional premiere of Beth Steel’s Wonderland, which premiered at the
Hampstead in 2014. Set in the Welbeck colliery during the miners’ strike of
1983, Steel’s play has the kaleidoscopic brio of a state-of-the-nation heavyweight
but it also conveys the minutiae of life in the pit, the political manoeuvres
and oddities, and the effects on the community. Although we see this story from
all sides, from the viciousness of the riots to the self-regard of the big wigs
in London, it is at its best when showing the lives of those, literally, at the
coal-face.
Similar to Chris Urch’s Land of Our Fathers (2013), we are
introduced to the intimate world of red-blooded coal miners. There is a fascination
to the inner-workings and politics of the workplace: the health and safety
regulations, the respect for your colleagues, and the sheer graft of the job.
It’s more than a job in that it defines the men, their gender politics, and the
surrounding communities. And although there are apparently five women to every
man in Nottingham, Wonderland has an all-male
cast, but it is testament to Steel’s talent and research that she conveys the
masculinity of this world with unapologetic force. We see the men bond and
clash, and although this is a big play on a huge stage, we see the small worlds
to which these men are confined. But revealingly, figuratively and otherwise,
Steel shows the openness and familiarity of these men: it’s not just them beating
their chests in a competitive display of masculinity. Yes, they work and complain
together but they also act out fantasies, tell jokes, sing, shower together,
and save each other’s lives. They have pride in their work.
Penford’s production does justice
to the script, ensuring that the play packs dramatic clout. Morgan Large’s
design viscerally takes us underground into the simultaneously vast yet
claustrophobic pit. Metal shafts clang and head torch beams shine far onto the
black walls which climb high and carry a hint of blue in Jack Knowles’ lighting,
which again helps to illuminate the cavernous mines. This set acts as a
backdrop onto which picket lines, Westminster offices and Nottingham pubs roll
on, the pits there as a constant reminder of what’s being put at stake. Naomi
Said’s movement helps to convey the workers’ unison, and it is all performed by
a strong ensemble cast. Deka Walmsley (no stranger to mines having been in Billy Elliot and The Pitmen Painters) particularly stands out as the colonel. As a
leader of the workforce, he may pull no punches but he also knows that a strong
workforce is crucial.
I can’t quite imagine how alien the
lives in this play might have seemed to a ‘typical’ Hampstead Theatre audience. Both
Nottingham-raised, Penford and Steel have brought the play ‘home’ and that emotional
connection to the subject matter was shown in the audience’s standing ovation. As
Richard Eyre discovered when he started in Nottingham, it’s a huge nod of
confidence that there is an appetite for big, ambitious, new plays that tackle still
pertinent local issues and depict a recent national landscape. At the urinals
afterwards, I overheard someone with a Nottingham accent go: “You wouldn’t get
this down the pit. Queuing!”
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| (L-R) Deka Walmsley and Nicholas Khan with the Wonderland company. Credit: Darren Bell |
