ROAD Royal Court Theatre

Jim Cartwright’s award-winning Road was given a memorable promenade production when it premiered at the Royal Court in 1986. Set in Thatcher’s Britain 3 million are out of work. Life is at a standstill. There is nothing to do except booze and have sex. Cartwright does for the working class in Northern Britain in the 1980’s what Henry Mayhew did for the working classes in London in the 1840’s. He gives the poor a voice. The script is a series of bleak monologues and duets, ribald, brutal and sometimes lyrical. June Watson, who is comic and sad at the same time, has one of the best solos, playing an old lady suffering from dementia. Mark Hadfield is well cast as an old man who remembers the good times in the 1950’s when there was lots of work and holidays. Michelle Fairley is hilarious when she tries to seduce a drunken soldier.