Hit the ROAD, Tom

“Are you fucking mental altogether?”

“I’ll kill you Brian, I’ll kill you — I’m not joking.”

An ambitious and creative production, ROAD presents a bleak look at Thatcherite Britain in a northern town. The play leads us through the lives of the residents on a typical gin-soaked Friday night – from immediate and brutal violence to bawdy drunkenness and heartbreaking fragility. Almost thirty years after its debut, this play has lost little of its ability to shock an audience. Jim Cartwright’s voyeuristic exhibit of the warts and all goings on of this single street reflect the resentment and very real fear of poverty felt in the hard hit north at the time, not so far from the imaginations of this recession’s generation.

These relentlessly grim lives with a sometimes fatal lack of hope for the future play out with unremitting realism. Bare lightbulbs cast stark light and moody shadows on a series of brightly wallpapered rooms that surround the audience. This created world extends into the interval where the audience is drawn into the debauchery of this long and drunken night.

Jumpsuits, shoulderpads, Dr Martens and double denim coupled with an aggressively eighties musical backdrop transport the audience to a forgotten era. All this creates an immersive theatre experience that succeeds in bringing the audience into the centre of the lives of the ROAD residents.

The ensemble cast deliver some nuanced and convincing performances, with countless stand-out monologues in this epic of grimness and austerity. Our narrator and anti-hero, Scullery, first played by Ian Dury of Hit Me With Your Rythm Stick fame is here taken on in all its leering grotesque glory with fresh energy by Oscar Gill.

Adam Lawrence’s performance as Skin-Lad was particularly polished as he successfully captured the audience with his stage presence and intense physical rage. An unparalleled commitment to the role saw Lawrence embrace skin-head authenticity by actually shaving off his majestic golden locks of flowing shoulder-length hair.

Andrew Finn brings a sickeningly vivid depiction of helplessness, anguish and bitterness as his character Joey struggles to come to terms with life’s lack of meaning. This anger is accompanied by Lizzie Riach’s romantically fatalistic Clare, cutting a pitiful figure as she gradually fades away.

The final scene epitomises the uneasy emptiness of the lives we’ve glimpsed on ROAD, with Emma Little as the mouthy and world-weary Carol and the haunting pain and chilling desperation of Hasan Al-Habib as Eddie.

The pathos of Brink and Louise, played by Steven Kingaby and Issy Lucas respectively, complemented the scene perfectly as these four characters try to find some way to escape their inner torment. Together voices build to a crescendo that is fully charged and leaves the audience with the helpless and hollow feeling that director Tom Cunningham intended.

Without a glimmer of hope or brightness, sometimes uncomfortably honest and occasionally hilarious – this is one from DramSoc that is not to be missed!

ROAD is running Wed 10th -Sat 13th December in the Union Concert Hall. Tickets are available on the door or online at imperialcollegeunion.org.