RSC Friends

Photographer: Topher McGrillis.

This new musical is full of humour, warmth, and energy. The dancing, singing and music are all excellent and a tribute to the multi talented cast. The sense of Joan Littlewood’s company being akin to a family is strongly conveyed in this entertaining production.

The stage sets remind us of an era when the proscenium arch was almost universal in theatres. Clever lighting and props show us how Joan broke this old convention. We begin to understand that she was a new kind of theatre director, bold and inventive.

The central conceit of the play works by having seven actors play Joan at different times in her life. This device enables the musical to illustrate Joan’s personal qualities and her passionate commitment to the political and social issues of the time.

We first meet Joan as a fostered child being taught Macbeth by nuns (an hilarious vignette). Next she gains a place at RADA which she leaves without graduating, disillusioned with the rather anaemic dramas being played in British theatres in the inter war years.

Joan’s compassion and resilience feature in the scenes that show her fighting to establish a theatre for the working classes at Theatre Workshop. Her battle to secure recognition and funding is unremitting and ultimately successful. In The final scenes we see Joan reflecting on her life and loves whilst wondering whether her new found commercial success has distanced her from the working class people that she cared so much about.