GEOFF BOTTOMS relishes a profoundly human portrait of a family as it evolves across 55 years in Sheffield
Mining history to mark anniversary of coal industry nationalisation
On Behalf of the People
[Tom Jackson]
PAUL DONOVAN applauds an excellently crafted new musical that explores the life and death of Ruth Ellis
PAUL DONOVAN is tickled by the excruciating take-downs of one of the funniest, wittiest, political writers around.
RON JACOBS points out, via a transcription of Kissinger’s secret recordings, that Trump could never have existed without Nixon and Kissinger
ELLIS RAE is persuaded that the advantages of the ‘talking cure’ are superior to the treatment of mental illness with drugs
JOHN GREEN, MICHAL BONCZA and BELLA KATZ review The Good Boy, Broken English, and Don't Be Prey
On Behalf of the People
Carriageworks Theatre, Leeds
COMMISSIONED by the National Coal Mining Museum for England, this production of On Behalf of the People is one of the events commemorating the 70th anniversary of the nationalisation of the mining industry.
Written after extensive research at the museum and in former mining communities, Ray Castleton has created a family drama for The Melting Shop, which wears its political allegiance close to its heart.
The recognisable character types are imbued with just enough humanity to sidestep outright stereotype in a play whose focus is the generational conflict between George Mason (Ray Ashcroft) — a committed union man and Labour supporter who returned from WWI to find that the promised “land fit for heroes” was a lie — and his son Tom (Danny Mellor), a modestly aspirational veteran of the second world war.
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