The Stage

Hobson’s Choice

Published Tuesday 23 May 2006 at 13:35 by Julie Watterston

Superb characterisations and entertaining direction draw the best comedy values from this Lancastrian drama in which playwright Harold Brighouse afforded a close study not only of class in the late 19th-century but also of the prolific shoe-making trade which firmly sets the play in its very specific industrial era.

There is no slow build to the comedy elements in this production testing the actors’ ability to set their characters from very early on; a challenge which is met by the entire cast with aplomb. The lines are delivered in a tempered, natural fashion so that the humour comes through almost as a surprise just moments in the play.

Of course the proverbial Hobson’s Choice (the fact that there is no choice at all) is reflected in various aspects of the plot and all of these choices are strengthened by Anna-Jane Casey as the indomitable Maggie and John Branwell as the bullish Henry Hobson. Paul Kemp gives an enjoyable and laughable solemnity to his role as William Mossop with Jack McKenzie making a brief yet powerful appearance as Dr MacFarlane. Rosalie Craig and Natalie Casey are the other two Hobson sisters, Alice and Vicky, with Paul Foster as Albert Prosser, Marianne Morley as Mrs Hepworth, Robert Vahey as Tubby Wadlow, Robert Benfield as Jim Heeler, Suzanne Toase as Ada Figgins and Mark Bixter as Fred Beenstock.

Jessica Curtis’s set provides a quirky access to the cellar workshop threading additional visual comedy through Act One and Two carrying through the theme using different aspects of the design into the remaining scenes.

For any theatregoer in the small village of Bagnor, near Newbury, it is most certainly Hobson’s Choice when it comes to choosing a play to see as there is no alternative in the very immediate vicinity. But in this case, Hobson’s Choice is a very good choice indeed.