Road — Royal Court

I saw this around a week ago and have been struggling with what to say about it ever since.

My gut reaction was immense frustration - the play in its original form has been butchered with a lot of text and narrative lost to reach this incarnation. With a far greater emphasis on movement/sleekness and much less on text and grit. Thinking back now, I should have realised that was to be the case considering the type of work John Tiffany produces.

I found it slightly laughable that this production uses more actors than the original one however has far fewer characters (and it was still tricky to discern sometimes who was actually who).

It also seems to be the most heavily marketed production the Royal Court have produced for some time (if my social media feed is anything to go by), is it not selling at all well?

Maybe the difference from marketing new plays at the Royal Court is that, very unusually at this theatre, this is a revival of a well-known play. So, many more people are likely to respond to the marketing - a much wider audience than the Royal Court regulars and the followers of new plays. And John Tiffany is a further marketing plus, with the Harry Potter recognition factor. So, there really must be the potential for this to completely sell out its limited run and it's well worth the Royal Court doing everything to maximise its audience. And some of the newcomers may well return to see future shows there, which would be an extra bonus for the Royal Court. Thursday matinee was pretty busy.

When Road was premiered, the only biographical information given by the Royal Court about Jim Cartwright was that he was an unemployed Bolton man. Which implied complete theatrical outsider status, as had earlier been the case with Andrea Dunbar, another writer championed by Max Stafford-Clark at the Royal Court. But in factJim Cartwright was an actor, trained at a drama school. This counters the outsider myth.

I enjoyed this rather more than I thought I would. Having missed it before and only read some cursory information about it I was half-expecting a humourless two-hour rant telling me how awful I am for having the money to go to a theatre to be told how awful I am for having the money......etc.

It's not like that at all is it? Whilst the overarching theme is the waste of human lives caught up in unemployment, deprivation and meaninglessness this is more about human nature and how people react to such pressures. Incidentally, why do we have to define ourselves as what we do? Surely the ultimate ambition should be to find ourselves as persons not be defined by what pays for the bills. "I am a fireman"... you shouldn't be. You shuld be a man who likes this and does that and puts out fires so you can afford to do the things you enjoy.

The poetic language which is used at times is really effective and takes the play to a different level, elevating it from the prosaic drinking and bad sex which occupies much of its time. The two monologues highlighted in an earlier post are things of beauty. Liked the use of music and the staging too.

What brings the play down a notch is the endings in both acts. Too vague and wordy, especially the long bedroom scene (clever as it is technically) where the character is flailing around with ideas which he doesn't understand and cannot communicate.

Not having seen the original production but having read the playtext it seems to me that any aspirations towards innovative presentation have more or less been abandoned and this is done here as a straight play with some quirks. But it's a pretty good play and certainly worth its revival.

Have to say I absolutely loved this. I liked the glass box as it emphasised the isolation, even in the middle of all that long life!
Performances superb all round. Much more humour than I'd expected too. And more than a few poignant moments.

While not revived in the format in which it was first presented in the 1980s, this production of Road still has something to say about lives as lived then and now, and its chosen format illustrates this and emphasises that, as we meet and re-meet characters and unfolding situations on the night in question. It struck me also that as the London theatre Upstairs that first staged this play, the Royal Court has reminded theatregoers that the Court isn't just famous for the older legendary productions it staged in the 1950s and 1960s but can claim a string of memorable plays down the years since. For all its remit about new writing, and also young writers, there are old glories it can point to, and Road has been worth doing in a period when some its plays in the last so many years have been hit and miss. It's entitled to re-stage this play, and it may even have people seeking out the BBC film version made some years ago by the late, legendary director Alan Clarke. 

I'm familiar with the play from the Alan Clarke TV film, and with the setting (I'm from Lancashire, and some of the characters were very recognisable) and I really enjoyed it. There were some strong, affecting performances - I didn't realise Michelle Fairley played three characters until I read the programme afterwards - and a great use of music. The only weak point for me was the bed scene - it went on too long and I wasn't sure what the premise was meant to be (a hunger strike bed-in?) and so it lost me.