James Graham is the current golden boy of British stage and screen – his ‘Labour of Love’ premiered at the Noel Coward Theatre in 2017 where, amongst a West End saturated with musicals revivals and jukebox interlopers, it had people almost camping out for returns.
It is a smart piece of theatre covering in tandem a Cupid’s arrow tale amidst 27 years of Labour Party history. The tale concerns David Lyons a Yorkshire born, Oxford-educated MP for a fictious ‘safe forever’ red North – Nottinghamshire constituency and his relationship with his agent Jean Whittaker.
Whilst the two share a love of their party – David from the new Blair centre, Jean from the traditional left, they also share an unspoken love for each other.
The play opens with David’s snooty political glitterati estranged wife Elizabeth arriving and announcing she wants him back at the same time as the unthinkable is happening – he is about to lose his safe seat.
Now starts the cleverness of Graham’s crafting as the action moves backwards chronologically via significant stages in David and the Labour Party’s lives to where it all began from him in 1990.
I have always found Director Stewart Snape to be a safe pair of hands, meticulous in detail and faithful to the writer. In this production he also designed the set, which on the surface is just a simple office but one which like a Tardis has to reflect whatever the year is.
A very clever part of the time-travelling is done by video produced and directed by Rod Nakiel and Tom Lowde and starring a bevy of Crescent company members, which is displayed on a large screen above the sight line.
Whilst we are watching this plus Labour Leaders and contenders making and breaking promises and world and local events, the props team of Jackie Blackwood, Carolyn Bourne and Trish Hodgetts seamlessly change bits and pieces on the set to fit where we are next at time-wise.
Once he had settled down, Mark Thompson made a splendid job of David Lyons. His puppy dog passion was quite infectious – though he looked older for some reason when we got back to 1990 than he did at the end.
Katie Merriman is spot on the money as Jean – brash, bold and with a soft underbelly of vulnerability.
Thompson and Merriman bounce off each other, making naivety of love between two clever people a welcome spectator sport amongst the infighting,
Joanne Hill is suitably calculatingly cold as Elizabeth Lyons. She shows us from the get-go she’s a Knightsbridge latte lady who would never make a Northern soul.
Naomi Jacobs makes her mark as an amusing activist and David Lai gives a delightful vignette as Mr Shen the Chinese industrialist in the funniest scene of the play.
William Hayes is as nasty as he is nice, mixing charm with malevolence as Len Prior the ‘labourer who would be leader’.
Labour of Love is a huge ask with its barrage of ‘in the thick of it’ humour, making politics entertaining, characterisation not caricature and holding our attention for nearly three hours.
To be fair, at the Sunday matinee, act one had its problems and lacked fluency at times making the last 15 minutes more ordeal than pleasure on those numb-bum chairs in the Ron Barber Studio.
However, act two (which is a reverse time rerun of act one plus an ending) went far more smoothly, ending up in triumph all round.
With undoubtedly the pace picking up as the company settle into the run, in the words of the song that rang out when Blair made the seemingly impossible, possible – ‘Things Can Only Get Better’.
****
Review by Euan Rose
Euan Rose Reviews
