The Stage

Only When I Laugh

Published Monday 9 February 2009 at 11:10 by Kevin Berry

Band call time for the music hall acts at the Leeds Empire, on a Monday morning in the fifties. The theatre manager is fretting because the band is late and he has a difficult star to deal with.

Jack Shepherd’s new play centres on Reg Henson, a fictitious comedy star of the period. Henson is notoriously belligerent, a vulgar comedian in the Frank Randle mould. The theatre manager, played by Shepherd, has to tell Henson that he must lose the top spot, and the number one dressing room, to a new, young singer. Violence is anticipated.

When the singer, played by Nicole Schneider, arrives, she accepts the situation, which is hugely disappointing for the play’s dynamic. She actually helps Henson, though why she does is never properly explained. Henson does destroy the number one dressing room, but he does so during the play’s interval. A good scene wasted.

Jim Bywater’s playing of Henson is vulgar enough but not nearly forceful or domineering enough. Shepherd is far too sincere - and too smartly dressed - to be playing a self-serving, weak-willed theatre manager. The music hall acts are pitched at the level of the Hi De Hi! holiday camp entertainers, which is disappointing. Their relationships are allowed to drift and dither.

There are interesting monologues about the nature of working class music hall heroes, such as Henson, and the audiences who made them heroes. But this play is crying out for comic tension - then it will be funny.