Theatre review: Road

In a rare instance of the Royal Court revisiting a past work, John Tiffany directs a 30th anniversary production of Road, Jim Cartwright’s slice of life in an unnamed Lancashire town. It seems a rather pointed revival of a play which comes down hard on Thatcher’s Britain, as despite the – nostalgic and funny by turns – period trappings it still feels relevant, its characters going out to get drunk and try to pull, covering up their desperation at the dead end their lives are in. Some have been led to unusual extremes, like Mike Noble’s Skin-Lad, a Buddhist skinhead, or Joey (Shane Zaza) and Clare (Faye Marsay,) dying in bed on hunger strike over something they can’t quite articulate. Most have more familiar stories of trying to cope though, and unemployed ex-sailor Scullery (Lemn Sissay) offers to be the audience’s tour guide over one typical Saturday night from dusk to dawn.

Theatre review: Raz

Playwright Jim Cartwright, best known for Jane Horrocks vehicle Little Voice, writes another piece designed to showcase one actor's range, in this case a male actor - specifically his son, James Cartwright. In the monologue Raz, Cartwright Jr plays Shane, de facto leader of his gang of mates, possibly because he's the one who knows where to get the drugs for their Friday nights out. Raz describes one such Friday night, starting with Shane shaking off the grey overalls of his Monday-Friday job as a forklift driver by spending his customary nine minutes on a tanning bed. Next it's getting dressed up while making sure he's already a bit drunk before leaving the house (cheaper than paying pub prices,) then meeting up with his mates and going to a series of pubs and clubs all over their unnamed town.

Theatre review: Two

The title of Jim Cartwright's Two refers to the number of people in the cast, one man and one woman playing, between them, everyone who goes into a small local pub in the course of an evening. So the fact that the new production at Southwark Playhouse features four people on stage may seem paradoxical. But this is the latest show from Deafinitely Theatre, the deaf and hearing-impaired company that performs in both English and British Sign Language, and hopes to appeal to both a deaf and hearing audience. So Andrew Muir's production gives Cartwright's play a new conceit: Matthew Gurney and Paula Garfield play the landlord and landlady, Sophie Stone and Jim Fish all the customers. The former pair communicate entirely in BSL, with the latter speaking an English translation. And for the scenes with the customers, the situation is reversed.