Standing at the Sky’s Edge – National Theatre

It is still a relatively rare experience to see a Working Class drama that invests its characters with a profound and complex, even a poetic interior, life, but from the first moments of Richard Hawley and Chris Bush’s Standing at the Sky’s Edge when a workman stops to greet the beauty of the dawn and the sound of birdsong, it is clear that this is no ordinary representation of
Working Class life. Set on what was a council estate in Sheffield, Park Hill, where the last residents were lured out in the early 2000s, Hawley and Bush’s musical imagines three stories lived across 60 years in one flat and the changing social and political circumstances that affects the individual lives during their time as residents as well as the changing face of Britain during
this period. Most importantly, the writers invest each of these scenarios with a deep and wide-ranging humanity supported by Hawley’s often soulful composition that gives these Working Class lives both resonance and significance in ways that theatre rarely manages to achieve.

What gives purpose to these stories is the changing political climate and the governmental elections that decisively shape the fortunes of the residents of Park Hill as well as the broader decline of the physical structure in which they are contained, noting the shifting patterns of Sheffield itself. It opens with the optimism of people moving into their new homes in 1960, 1989 and 2015, enjoying the promise that this opportunity to begin a new life brings, yet the clock soon ticks forward, eating up the years and taking each set of characters to the eve of a Conservative election victory in 1979, 1992 and 2017 that shatter these expectations and facilitate the social ruin of a once happy and desirable estate.

By the twenty-first century, time and policy has erased the Working Class tenants, turning the building into a commercial endeavor sold to wealthier escapees from London, dulling the social history of this both illustrious and notorious location. Aligning crisis moments in the lives of the inhabitants with these decisive political changes is effective and affecting in a story that reflects the state of the nation at key moments since the Second World War and the ultimately disastrous effects of Conservative governments on ordinary people who in class, wealth and geography are far from the seat of power. But these themes are subtly woven through Act Two as time moves on again to the end of 1986, 2005 and 2019 where the consequences of personal and political decisions play-out.

Standing at the Sky’s Edge is lightly navigated by a narrator, the Estate Agent who introduces the final resident Poppy to her now chic brutalist home, a device used to coincide with the changes of years, helping to move the audience’s understanding along, the infrequency of which gives the role a Greek chorus feel able to step back from the day-to-day dramas the characters are living through to make more explicit or ominous statements about the changing face of Sheffield and its potential consequences for the residents of Park Hill. It works in a similar way to the Narrator in Blood Brothers, deepening this sense of the profundity and importance of Working Class lives that Hawley’s lyrics in particular evoke.

Directed by Robert Hastie and performed on a semi-staged set by Ben Stones, the action takes place simultaneously in the living room and kitchen of a flat, one space which all three residents occupy at the same time but decades apart, allowing scenes and stories to overlap while occasional activity from the wider estate bleeds in through the invisible walls. Choreographer Lynne Page uses these moments to create the bustle of multiple lives happening side-by-side with residents passing by, above and around, a changing community that surrounds the inhabitants of this particular flat which gives a sense of scale to Standing at the Sky’s Edge by adding an unexpected macro non-verbal texture to the micro stories that Hawley and Bush create.

And this is an unusual production in other ways, particularly in the presentation and style of the musical numbers which largely eschew traditional forms of presentation. Songs are incorporated into the narrative with characters singing their troubles in the moment essentially to themselves – few of the numbers here are duets by couples sharing feelings with one another and instead unrelated characters reflect on similar emotional experiences across different eras simultaneously along with a wider ensemble representing a community of similar feeling. But musical numbers are also presented directly to the audience sung with stand microphones in which the character steps out of the scenario to perform a concert solo of their feelings

This approach asks the audience to think less about the drama of the story and to see the specific character for who they are, giving their lives the profound and poetic importance that Hawley and Bush seek. All of the principals have at least one solo moment and even in ensemble numbers, such as the beautiful title song that opens Act Two with everyone on stage, there is a sense that they are all singing a solo at the same time telling us that these are important, meaningful lives. Hawley’s musical choices only underscore that notion with deeply soulful melodies and even a bluesy feel that is so rarely applied to Working Class lives on stage but creates deep wells of emotional resonance that roll out into the audience.

The three stories, all connected by the pursuit and changing experience of love, are variably engaging and with six decades to cover in the two hour and 50-minute running time, there isn’t always enough space to really explore each individual in sufficient detail across the three eras they experience. The most affecting of these is the middle story starting in 1989 when Joy (beautifully voiced by Faith Omole) comes to live in the UK with her aunt and cousin, given a flat on the Park Hill estate where she worries for the safety of her parents who may face war at home while she endures racist taunts from the local boys. But it is the meeting with former Park Hill resident Jimmy (a charming Samuel Jordan) that soon proves the heart of this story as a tender emotion develops between them despite having so much in the way.

But we are soon in John Osborne territory, at least in the first Act, as their story starts to echo Epitaph For George Dillon (co-written with Antony Creighton), as this Working Class couple filled with aspiration and hope for the future, of the possibility of getting out of the, by now insalubrious, Park Hill estate is inevitably trapped by fate into surrendering all those dreams and living the same life as everyone else. This is particularly affecting in Act Two having followed their path for several years, when Jimmy sings of feeling trapped, of wanting to escape and leave it all behind, something he barely has the courage to do. Turning down a chance to leave in Act One, this recurring desire to reassert his true self is very moving, but he loves his now wife and can’t let her down leaving him deeply and affectingly torn between seizing the chance to be more and quietly accepting he must subsume himself into his family life.

Joy too endures the same trajectory although she is more accepting of the life she develops, scaling down her own dreams to support her marriage and trying to be happy with what she has. The connection between Joy and Jimmy is lovely, developing from a shy childhood meeting to a fear of losing one another and a genuinely happy relationship despite the financial and emotional compromises the couple make to keep their life together afloat. There are big consequences for Joy that make this the most effective of the stories, understanding more about the sacrifices of self imposed on Working Class lives by circumstances that these individuals must then live with.

The middle tale follows couple Rose and Harry, newlyweds who move into Park Hill in its heyday from the slums, filled with the optimism that 1960s social housing was designed to inspire. Initially, there is little to this couple, they are blissfully happy in their relationship and their home, and while they struggle to conceive, Hawley and Bush don’t really get under the skin of the pair until much later in the show when the arrival of Margaret Thatcher brings the closure of the steel factory where Harry (Robert Lonsdale) works, striking miner friends that they support and long-term unemployment that puts a strain on their marriage after 20 years of relative contentment. It is the most overtly political strand of Standing at the Sky’s Edge that, like Mickey in Blood Brothers, looks at the consequences for men like Harry driven to inertia and alcoholism by the removal of whole industries and any opportunity to find alternative work.

This is also an era in which the social decay of the Park Hill estate, begins the underfunded consequences of which begin to affect the residents during the Act One finale, showing the dilapidation and deterioration of the physical estate and the social fabric that had kept the houseproud inhabitants invested in maintaining their environment. One of the show’s best moments places the future Jimmy and Harry side-by-side at home feeling the same sense of dislocation and abandonment many years apart as notions of masculine providers shifts the burden of supporting the household, leaving both with an aching despair about the lives they now endure.

Rose’s character is less well investigated, a surface housewife for much of the show, she is a sweet and likeable woman but the audience learns little about her life beyond, where she came from and what she wanted from life. But Rose gets her moment, a heartbreaking song, movingly performed by Rachael Wooding, when facing the consequences of all those political impacts on her marriage when she opens her heart to the audience. The loss she expresses is deeply felt and consuming, reiterating the depth and meaning within Working Class lives that drama so often overlooks.

The final strand is the least believable, a contemporary story of a Middle Class character Poppy who moves from London to escape a broken relationship and, much to the consternation of her mother, moves into the now renovated flat where she builds a new life but refuses or is unable to move on from her former partner Nikki who inevitably turns up. The story is well performed by Alex Young as Poppy while Maimuna Memon as Nikki provides an extraordinary vocal, but this character faces none of the external shaping that so meaningfully affects the other women who front this musical. Poppy may get caught up in some angst about whether the wealthy deserve to buy former Working Class homes but much of her self-focused introspection feels generic. It means she is presented in the way that theatre always sees Middle Class women, blandly drinking wine alone and feeling sorry for herself in what we assume is an expensive kitchen. Even her conclusion works against the determined independence that Poppy has insisted upon throughout – it certainly feels like some of these stereotypes need updating.

The bright and breezy opening section of Standing at the Sky’s Edge grows into a rich and layered piece about communities shaped by their external landscape as well as their own desires and aspirations. It invests Working Class stories with a meaning and purpose that, as Harry insists, asks you to see their individuality, the hope and pain, of good people doing their best. That Hawley and Bush allow their characters to express all of that in such a soulful way is their biggest achievement and this co-production, transferring from Sheffield to the National Theatre, gives the writers an even greater platform to present the vast humanity of Working Class lives as they really are.

Standing at the Sky’s Edge runs at the National Theatre until 25 March with tickets from £20. Follow this blog on Twitter @culturalcap1 or Facebook Cultural Capital Theatre Blog

The York Realist – Donmar Warehouse

Like a Yorkshire Brief Encounter, Peter Gill’s 2001 play The York Realist set in the 1960s has lost none of its power in the 17 years since it was written. Rather, it has only grown in stature as a sensitive and restrained tale of love and loss set against a background of tradition, duty and expectation in a Yorkshire farming village. The Donmar Warehouse’s revival couldn’t be more timely; two years ago the 50^th anniversary of the decriminalisation of homosexuality reinvigorated interest in telling the stories of repression and prejudice while celebrating hard-won rights and freedoms. This culminated in a seminal production of Angels in America at the National Theatre last year, which recently opened on Broadway, while Francis Lee’s 2016 film God’s Own Country also set on a Yorkshire farm has earned itself a number of BAFTA nominations.

The Yorkshire countryside has long been an inspiration for writers looking to elucidate the link between the unforgivingly beautiful landscape and the stoical men and doughty women who feel enduringly tethered to their physical surroundings. It may have started with Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights as the wild moors became synonymous with her dark hero Heathcliff, but plenty of great work has followed, from the comic creations of Alan Ayckbourn, each tinged with a deep-rooted sadness, through John Godber to more recent work such as James Graham’s fringe play Sons of York, as well as films including last year’s Dark River with Ruth Wilson. Yorkshire is arguably the one county that continues to fascinate and inspire popular culture.

With more than a nod to DH Lawrence, The York Realist may have a tough exterior, set in a slightly rundown cottage with an outdoor loo in the middle of solitary acres of hard farming land where nothing has changed for decades or even centuries, but it’s actually a fragile and deeply emotional piece. In Robert Hastie’s wonderful new production it feels like delicate china in your hands, as though any second you might crush it to pieces, and the gentle unfolding of Gill’s tale of impossible love clutches at your heart, making it ache for these victims of circumstance.

One evening while having his tea, young farmer George is surprised to find John, an Assistant Director, on his doorstep wondering why he hasn’t been to rehearsal for the York Mystery play for a few weeks. That night their relationship begins, but with a farm to run, a live-in ailing mother to take care of, his sister’s family nearby and plenty of neighbours traipsing through, the two men find themselves on different paths. As John’s visit to Yorkshire comes to end and a return to London beckons, what future can they have even when circumstances change?

Taking place entirely in George’s farm kitchen, the play starts with a Brief Encounter-style ending as John arrives evidently many months after their separation. Exactly like Noel Coward and David Lean’s film, by setting-up the beginning of the end in advance Gill’s play creates an emotional pitch from the start as this small teaser fades instantly back into the past re-establishing a world long disappeared. Gill takes the audience back to only the crucial moments of George’s recent past where love, family and possibility existed and were sacrificed, while commenting on a lost agricultural world of community and support.

The Lawrence parallels are clear, dominant mothers, silent sons with artistic souls, the warmth and sometimes claustrophobic effect of small working-class communities and feeling as though opportunity narrows rather than increases with age. Gill, like Lawrence writes with romantic realism about the land, of the physical connection to place in a way people can never feel in cities, and this flows through Hastie’s production as each of the residents we meet feels permanently anchored to Mother’s kitchen, the latest in generations of Yorkshire folk to have been part of this enduring community.

This sense of timelessness is also represented in Peter McKintosh’s set design, incorporating a graphic depiction of those ancient hills and dales that stand eternally behind the house, suggesting both a hint of life beyond the walls of the cottage – which John offers to George – while also being the reason he can never accept it, can never be too far from this stretch of earth. While ostensibly set in the 1960s, there’s deliberately little here to suggest that decade apart from the odd text reference.

Instead, McKintosh has rightly chosen to create something that looks long-standing in both the set and costumes, built at any time in the last 100 years, dominated by an ancient cooking range and fireplace, and added to by the occupants -while the 60s may be raging elsewhere, here modernity and history have little place. And for a production that makes its central love story with virtually no physical contact so poignant, this agelessness adds to its power and effect on the viewer.

Hastie’s approach draws out some concept of contrasting worlds, of the comparative social freedoms and variety of London life, referenced in one of George’s later conversations, and the more contained existence of the Yorkshire farmer, but it’s not a point that’s laboured. In some ways the differences between George and John are the very reason they are drawn to one another and why they are a perfect match, but – like Laura and Alec – it’s circumstance and duty that forces them apart, an inability to take the ultimate disruptive step, to pull down their existing lives for one another. Fear not difference divides them.

Ben Batt as George, slowly builds a sense of inner turmoil, and the importance of the deep-rooted connection not just to John, but to his mother and to his community. What begins as expected – a quiet no-nonsense Yorkshireman – soon flourishes as performing in the Mystery Play gives him confidence, and a taste of wider purpose. Batt reveals George’s essential fragility and vast emotional life in stages as we see the happiness performing brings him comes with the pain of discovering a talent too late for it to change his world.

As the plot unfolds, Batt starts to retreat once more behind his stone wall as the disappointments stack-up, but by this time it’s clear to the audience the raging feeling underneath. There is a claim to home, family and decency in his character that he is powerless to resist, which builds well to a final meeting with John where the pain of allowing himself to open-out only to be stung becomes incredibly affecting in Batt’s wonderful performance as he struggles to reclose his heart and face a future of lonely expectation and duty.

In Jonathan Bailey’s performance John is much easier in his own skin, with fewer ties to a sense of place and purpose than George which gives him a transitory feel. Though wedded to the idea of London and the development of his career which he is as unwilling to sacrifice as his lover, John feels instantly at home in Mother’s cottage, thrilled by the location and the ancient authenticity of George’s family home, welcoming him warmly in.

Yet John is also unable to quite grasp the importance of the Yorkshire family, and in Bailey’s equally contained performance, there is a sense of John wanting to improve George’s life by rescuing him and freeing his talent for performance and expression. Bailey demonstrates that for John artistic freedom and pursuit sit above anything else, and, with no mention of family or home of his own, John cannot imagine any longstanding commitment that would remove him from his world. While the feeling between both men is clearly tangible and heart-warming, they can only ever be ‘visitors’ in each other’s experiences.

Despite George’s essential loneliness, his home is never empty with a succession of people popping by throughout the play, and no one is alone in the kitchen for more than a few moments. Lesley Nicol brings subtly to the role of George’s Mother, a hearty woman whose continually tiredness is covered up by her own sense of duty, a need to keep house for her working son. There is an ease between the two that allows Nicol to exert a domestic care but also shows she is a stalwart of her community, attending church and supplying endless cups of tea that no one gets to finish.

Lucy Black as George’s sister Barbara, Matthew Wilson as her husband Arthur and Katie West as neighbour Doreen add texture, helping to create a solid sense of local life beyond the kitchen that includes working on the farm and going to one of the local pubs. West’s Doreen is also George’s alternative life, someone he could marry largely because the circumstances are right, they are the same age more or less and both essentially kind-hearted. But Black and West have a lovely all-female duologue in which they gently hint that they know and accept George’s true inclinations, and there is some well-played ambiguity as to whether Doreen will fully accept her lot.

There is real tenderness in Hastie’s production of The York Realist which runs through this well-realised 1hr and 45-minute show. There is an interval and despite its short run-time, this one feels necessary, giving the audience a chance to reflect, allowing the various ideas of place, home and identity to sink in before the conclusion. Nothing feels rushed, allowing this beautifully sad production to really touch the heart. A modern classic and a Yorkshire Brief Encounter indeed.

The York Realist is at the Donmar Warehouse until 24 March. Tickets are largely sold out but are available through the Klaxon Scheme every Monday at 12pm and daily standing tickets are released at 10am. Follow this blog on Twitter @culturalcap1