The Stage

Love on the Dole

Published Wednesday 20 October 2010 at 14:32 by Andrew Liddle

Ronald Gow’s wonderful adaptation adds a dramatic shape to the original angry regional novel, retaining, in concise form, all its depth and raw emotional intensity. Coming out in 1934, only a year after Stanley Greenwood’s bleak realism had caused a furore, arguably it did for the thirties what such plays as Look Back in Anger, Cathy Come Home and Boys from the Blackstuff would do for later decades.

A scene from Love on the Dole at the Octagon Theatre, Bolton Photo: Ian Tilton

Clare Foster, who recently received rave reviews here for her performance of Blanche Dubois in A Streetcar Named Desire, is wholly gripping in the lead role of Sally Hardcastle, at the centre of a family torn apart by the devastating economic forces of the great slump sweeping across Hanky Park, Salford.

Kieran Hill demonstrates his emotional range as her doomed lover, Larry Meath, vainly battling the twin forces of consumption and poverty, while Sam Lupton, in his final year of training at Manchester School of Theatre, excels as young Harry Hardcastle, in bitter conflict with his father (David MacCreedy) when getting his girlfriend Helen (Sarah Vezmar) in the family way.

A quartet of contrasting females adds much to the fabric of the social backdrop. Mrs Hardcastle (Barbara Peirson) wrings her hands at the horror of it all, Mrs Jike (Annie Tyson) seeks solace in spiritualism and the concertina, the alcoholic Mrs Dorbell (Susan Twist) revels in self pity, whilst Mrs Bull (Flo Wilson), local midwife-cum-mortician, casts a wearily professional eye.

David Thacker’s revival is timely given current economic conditions, and packs a rare punch.