(Rated 4/5 )
I saw the stage version of this
play and then a few days later saw the film too. An obvious thing to say but
how different and yet the same! To me the film had a darker feel and hit me
harder but the play allowed a deeper exploration of the characters particularly
through the dialogue, and somehow brought out more of the comedy in the
dynamics between them. I felt despair at the end of the film, but hope somehow
at the end of the play. It feels strange – yet I guess obvious – to get such
polar feelings from the two different productions. I suppose the darkness of
the film may also have to do with it being in black and white, and the more
obviously visible darkness of the settings – Salford and
Blackpool - and many of them cutting fairly frequently
from one to another. Location changes in the play are much fewer – in the main
we are either in Helen and Jo’s small ‘shabby’ flat together or Jo’s first home
alone - and the characters convey to us changes in time with actions between
‘scenes’, especially with lots of great movements to music! The dancing was
great and the musical interludes fun, expressive, light and deeply moving all
at the same time. I loved Lesley Sharp and Kate O’Flynn as mother Helen and
daughter Jo respectively. Lesley Sharp never disappoints for me though I
struggled a little to feel empathy for her in a role that is so unsavoury and
uncaring for her daughter yet favours the next man who turns up to woo her only,
as you can so easily predict, to then let her down. Kate O’Flynn’s Jo is
brilliant! She has a strength and resilience from coping with her mother moving
them from place to place - no stability, no security - and bringing herself up
as Helen couldn’t be bothered with and often abandoned her, yet also such a
sensitivity and delicateness. A very knowing yet childlike character longing to
love and be loved yet so wary and unsure of both. I loved the expressiveness in
her voice, its tone, volume, accent – perfectly pitched in speech and song.
Dean Lennox Kelly was suitably unlikeable as Helen’s ‘friend’ Peter, Eric Kofi
Abrefa lovely as Jo’s sailor-boy Jimmie and Harry Hepple (great name) adorable
as Jo’s gay friend Geoffrey, with whom she finally shares a kind of idyllic
playing being a family about to bring up baby together. I found myself
beautifully enveloped by the dialogue and performances and didn’t notice it
being such a long play. Helen is played by Dora Bryan in the much shorter film
which also introduced Rita Tushingham as Jo. Again excellent performances with
the camera up close and personal to all the nuances of feeling in the actors’
faces. This play transports us to the experiences of women in 1950s Salford .
A radically different perspective to what had gone before and written by the
amazing Shelagh Delaney.
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