Rutter being Rutter … it’s what audiences at the Viaduct Theatre in Halifax have come to expect over a quarter of a century. The Northern Broadsides founder going through his ritual of greeting the audience personally as they enter the auditorium, either as director or (as in this case) clad in a dressing gown prior to his performance.
Then there’s the larger than life on-stage characterisation, words booming in the void beneath Dean Clough mills, making sure both sides of the promenade auditorium get the full effect.
And of course, it’s all in the northern voice.
That’s what Northern Broadsides are known for, “Shakespeare in a Yorkshire accent”, but there’s a whole lot more to it than that; For Love Or Money is just the latest of many obscure texts brought back to life by this innovative company, an 18th century French farce reinvented with some great comic characters given real heart and guts and deep, resonating northern vowels.
I doubt if many Leeds folk will have heard of the original play it’s based on, that being ‘Turcaret’ by Alain-René Lesage. I certainly hadn’t, so for a bit of background the programme states it was first performed at the Comédie-Française in 1709, and it was last seen in English in London in 1988.
This is the sixth classic adaptation Blake Morrison has done for Northern Broadsides, and he believes the time is right for a revival. “It’s a play about greed” he notes, “and nothing’s more topical than greed”.
Morrison moves the setting from rural France to northern England in the 1920s. Rose (Sarah-Jane Potts) is a war widow hanging on to the vestiges of gentility in a big house in a small town under the plain-speaking care of housekeeper Marlene (an outstanding performance from Jacqueline Naylor).
In a familiar triangle Rose is being courted by rich old man Fuller (Barrie Rutter), who’s the local bank manager, and also by Arthur (Jos Vantyler) a young, good-looking, smooth talking wasteral. Arthur’s collaborator-come-servant is Jack (Jordan Metcalfe) who acts as go-between.
We quickly learn no-one is quite what they seem. What is clear is they’re all after love, or at least sex, and that they all want money. Lots and lots of it.
The plot piles layer upon layer of complexity. Who is the woman in the photograph (Sarah Parks)? How does Fuller, a pillar of the community, know flighty maid Lisa (Kat Rose-Martin), and what’s her relationship to Jack? Has Ruddle the clerk (Matthew Booth) been sacked or not?
Amid all the plotting and sexual intrigue honest, innocent sheep farmer Martin (Jim English) is there to remind us just how decadent his supposed betters have become.
It’s all a bit of a carry on – in a good way (there’s even a ‘bigamy’ gag Kenneth Williams would have been proud of), and it’s very entertaining.
The cast and the writer enjoy some modern word play and innuendo within the period setting, and the dialogue is a masterclass in the Yorkshire dialect of the period. My grandmother would have been a sharp-tongued match for housekeeper Marlene. This script revives many phrases that through her were part of my childhood, but which are forgotten today.
The audience enjoyed it too, all the more for knowing this will be Barrie Rutter’s last appearance with the company, although he will direct the Shakespeare’s Globe and Northern Broadsides co-production of The Captive Queen at the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse early next year.
Over the last twenty-five years Rutter has overseen many of Northern Broadsides’ big successes including casting Lenny Henry in Othello and Mat Fraser in Broadsides’ Richard III as part of Hull 2017, as well as the acclaimed productions of The Wars of the Roses, Rutherford & Son (directed by Jonathan Miller) and the award-winning An August Bank Holiday Lark. In 2015 Barrie was awarded the OBE for Services to Drama.
For Love Or Money runs until Saturday at the Viaduct Theatre, Halifax before moving on to the West Yorkshire Playhouse next week (Tue 26 – Sat 30 Sept) and the Lawrence Batley Theatre, Huddersfield (Wed 11 – Sat 14 Oct).
Other Yorkshire tour dates are at the Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough (Tue 14- Sat 18 Nov), and York Theatre Royal (Tue 28 – Sat 2 Dec).
Production Photography by Nobby Clark
