Sheffield Theatres – until Saturday 2 July 2022
5*****
To celebrate the belated 50th birthday of the Crucible, Chris Bush has written 3 plays currently being played across all three of the Sheffield theatre spaces. Performed at the same time by the same cast, telling the same story from three different perspectives. The plays can be viewed together or separately and each one is perfect alone or with the others.
50 years ago Thomas Spenser bought the Hallamshire Scissor Company as a going concern, renaming it Spenser and Son. After the demise of Thomas, his son, Eddie, takes over and now, on the death of Eddie, three different groups are under the impression they have inherited Spenser and Son.
In Rock we meet Susie Spenser, the daughter who was overlooked to run the business. Her dad did offer that once she married her husband could run the company with him and Eddie, but women were to be kept at home while the men went out to work. Susie (Denise Black) is an ageing Rock Chick who has been everywhere and done everything. Firmly believing she is now to inherit Spenser and Son, her idea is to turn the factory into a place of creativity. A place where music can be written and performed, a studio, a record label, a stage and a bar and an entire hive of creativity.
Susie and her friend Leo (Andrew Macbean) are waiting for a photographer and a band to turn up, to get some photos for ideas for the potential investors. She mistakenly thinks Xander (Leo Wan) is Billy the photographer (Alastair Natkiel) and that Zara (Lucie Shorthouse) is band member Coco (Chanel Waddock). Billy mistakenly believes that Liv (Maia Tamrakar), Ava (Dumile Sibanda) and Trent (Joe Usher) and the Cocodamol, up and coming, hip new band made up of Coco and friend Molly (Daisy May). Xander mistakes Susie for her niece Faye (Samantha Power) who he is meeting with her wife Mel (Natalie Casey) to discuss turning the space into flats. Factory Manager Omar (Guy Rhys) and daughter Zara are expecting a photographer from the Sheffield Star to come along to take photos of the apprentices Mason (Jabez Sykes), Liv, Ava and Trent.
Anthony Lau direction, Richard Howells (Lighting) and Annie May Fletchers (Sound) help Ben Stones (Designer) turn the huge space of the Crucible into the bare factory floor and it’s easy to imagine we are in a cold, unused factory space that has history pouring out the very walls. Rock is sad, funny, poignant and beautiful. After all – did you know that Picasso visited that very factory in the 1950’s and drew a picture of two women at the grinding wheel?
In Paper we meet Faye and Mel properly. Faye is the adopted daughter of Eddie and also firmly believes she has inherited Spenser and Son. Her dad did offer that once she married her husband could run the company with him, history repeating itself. But Faye is with Mel and they are both mothers to their two children. With all the action taking place in Eddie and Omar’s office.
Faye and Mel introduce themselves as married but they’re not. Mel wants to be married, wants to provide for Fay and the children. Currently on sick leave from work Mel’s caustic sarcastic temperament hides a depression that once out engulfs both Mel and Faye. Casey is heartbreaking, stealing every scene, full of emotional turmoil with her bravery in admitting things she would probably never normally say out loud. It’s a powerhouse performance. Whilst they don’t find the will, they find a drawing that Faye believes her dad drew of her and Mel working together on the grinding wheel
The Lyceum is transformed into an office, designed by Janet Bird. Robert Hasties direction, Johanna Towns lighting and Sam Glossops sound make it such an intimate performance that you almost feel like an intruder at their sadness.
In Scissors we meet the apprentices Ava, Liv, Mason and Trent. All making handcrafted scissors costing £90 a pair for a huge order for China. Omar and daughter Zara believe that Eddie left Spenser and Son in trust to them, to carry on making scissors and shears all full of history. All of the young workers have issues and all of them are worried about what will happen at the end of their one year apprenticeship. With varying dreams of being a supervisor, living alone in a forest and going to work at Ikea. For Liv it’s in her veins, her grandmother worked in the factory before getting made redundant when Eddie inherited. Her grandmother used to thrill her with stories, such as when Picasso visited and sketched her picture at the grinding wheel. The picture was never found, but Delyth, the other woman who was sketched, moved from her council house in Sheffield to a 2-bed Semi in Harrogate not long after…..!
The intimacy of the Studio made you feel you were actually there on the factory floor. Scissors is raw and gritty and, in my opinion, the best show of the three. Elin Schofields direction, Natasha Jenkins design, Jai Morjarias lighting and Tingying Dongs sound place you right at the heart of the action, scarily close to the sparks from the grinder.
Chris Bush is a fabulous writer, knowing the area and the history, her characters are all real 3 dimensional people that, over the course of the three plays, you come to know and care about. I was willing Susie and Leo to have their happy ever after. For Mel and Fay to be there for each other forever and for Ava, Liv, Mason and Trent to have happy and fulfilled futures.
A huge and massive shout out must go not just to the actors but to the tech crew too. Performing 3 plays, over 3 venues, with all of the performers all popping up in each other’s shows, takes a lot of planning and coordination. Fingers crossed for no unexpected slips or falls so everything runs smoothly.
It’s a joyous celebration for the Crucible’s 50th Birthday and I hope I get to see all three brilliant productions again soon