Presence ( Archived )

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newspaper reviews

(L to R) Ralf Little (George), Michael Legge (Pete), Ralf Little (George), William Ash (Paul)

Production photography by Joe Dillworth

Direction: James Kerr Design: Rae Smith Lighting: Paule Constable Sound: Fergus O’Hare for Aura

Cast: William Ash, Michael Legge, Ralf Little, Christine Tremarco, Sarah Woodward

All five performances from Ralf Little making his stage debut as George to the experienced Sarah Woodward, never better than as the dry unflappable Marian are excellent. As the play goes by, everything about it is interesting and much of it appealing. … PRESENCE is really about the moment when lads turn into grown-ups; about why Hamburg in 1960 was a turning point for three naive Liverpudlian pop musicians.

Alistair Macaulay FINANCIAL TIMES

It sounds sensational. There’s a moment in Presence when William Ash’s Paul, an aggressive Liverpudlian rock musician, gleefully dons Nazi jackboots as part of his bands plan to taunt a 1960 Hamburg audience in David Harrower’s sombre engrossing new play. Presence harks back to the days of rock n roll’s immaturity, when Britain still thought that swinging was what you did in school playgrounds. … The set, which designer Rae Smith has dreamed up, reduces Hamburg to a black open space: there’s the three lads basement room centre stage, with neon-lit bar and caf in the shady background. In 16 briskish scenes and 80 minutes, the lads struggle for success and sexual one upmanship. … The play is not, however solely concerned with the antics and sexual jousting of the Liverpool lads Harrower’s canvas is far wider and deeper. He makes use of the bands Hamburg sojourn to suggest how ignorant sixties English youth were about Germany’s complex feelings of guilt and suffering.

Nicholas de Jongh EVENING STANDARD

What wouldn’t one give to be a young Beatle in Hamburg in 1960, when the band were honing there skills as live performers and discovering the joys of sex and drugs and rock n roll. … David Harrower, a talented Scottish dramatist moves into the sleazy world of the reeperbahn for a play about the group before they became the lovable, world conquering mop tops … It’s a lively, perceptive and politically challenging piece, posing the wider question of Germany 15 years after the Second World War. … his portrait of the rivalries between these young kids on their first trip abroad is spot on. The sexual bravado, the casual cruelties and the yearning discontent of adolescence are beautifully caught.

Charles Spencer DAILY TELEGRAPH