It’s worth a trip to Richmond Theatre to see this revival of Shelagh Delaney’s classic play, says Richard Davies...
OUR VERDICT
Sixty years after its debut performance, the National Theatre’s revival of Shelagh Delaney’s ‘A Taste of Honey’ is a confident production of the classic 1960s ‘kitchen sink drama’ that has now reached Richmond Theatre as part of its UK tour.
It’s quite incredible to think that the author, Shelagh Delaney, was only 18 years old when she wrote it. Included in the programme is a copy of the sassy covering letter she wrote to the theatre agent Joan Littlewood – itself a classic of its kind. Delaney was an unknown working-class girl from Salford with little formal education who had written the play in six weeks on a borrowed typewriter. Littlewood instantly recognized she had discovered a special talent.
The play begins unexpectedly with Helen, played by Jodie Prenger, crooning a bluesy nightclub number, accompanied by a three-piece jazz combo who for some reason has taken up residency in her front room. This takes a little getting used to but after a while, you almost forget that they are there. (In my experience jazz musicians are a bit like that - once you invite them in, it can be hard to get them to leave.)
We quickly learn that - as my northern Granny would have said - Helen is ‘no better than she ought to be’. An alcoholic single mother who lives off her boyfriends, she and her schoolgirl daughter Jo have moved into a squalid Salford flat with naked light bulbs and the aforementioned infestation of jazz musicians. Before long, Helen escapes to marry one of her fellas, the domineering and piratical eye-patch wearing Pete. Home alone for Christmas, Jo is consoled by Jimmy, her sailor boyfriend who happens to be black. Because the play was written before we learned to beware racial stereotypes, Jimmy woos her, impregnates her and like Helen, abandons her. With her uncanny eye for the great social transformations of our time, Jo then befriends Geoff a young gay art student, who has been thrown out of his digs because of his sexuality, and soon they are happily living together. But of course, you know it won’t last…
Prenger is fabulous and has a fantastic, versatile voice; back in 2008 it won her the part of Nancy in the stage musical Oliver after she reached the finals of ‘I’d Do Anything’. But her great asset as a musical theatre performer is also a liability because you’re never quite sure when she is next going to burst into song. For this reason – and perhaps this is a fault of the production - I found that her performance never achieves any real emotional depth. Similarly, the rapid-fire dialogue between mother and daughter – although brilliantly scripted – seemed to quickly reach and remain at the same intense and rather monotonous pitch for long periods of the play.
For me, the outstanding performances were from the young actors Gemma Dobson as Jo, and Stuart Thompson, who particularly impressed in his professional theatre debut as Geoff, both as an actor and as a musical performer. And although he is barely on stage, I also enjoyed Durone Stokes as Jimmie; he too has a beautiful singing voice.
As a play, A Taste of Honey is very much of its time. But it is fascinating to watch nonetheless and well worth seeing if you can get a ticket. It is interesting to reflect that while so many of the overt themes no longer have any shock factor (single parents, mixed-race relationships, homosexuality), the core theme of Helen’s cynical, selfish and incompetent parenting style seems to me as relevant as ever.
Taste of Honey is at Richmond Theatre Mon 7 Oct 2019 - Sat 12 Oct 2019. (book here)
