The People Are Friendly ( Archived )

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newspaper reviews

(L TO R) Sheridan Smith, Michelle Butterly; Sally Rogers, Paul Broughton; Sally Rogers, Sue Jenkins

Photography by Ivan Kyncl.

Direction: Dominic Cooke, Design: John Stevenson, Lighting: Peter Mumford, Sound: Paul Arditti.

Cast includes:Paul Broughton, Michelle Butterly, Joe Cooper, Sue Jenkins, Stephen Mangan, Nick Moss, Jack Richards, Sally Rogers, Sheridan Smith

‘Homecomings in drama are rarely happy. Think of Aeschylus, Pinter or Wesker’s Roots. But even by those standards, Michelle in Michael Wynne’s scabrously funny new play – his first for the Court since The Knocky in 1994 – has a tough time discovering that Birkenhead is about as welcoming to its returning daughters as Argos was to Agamemnon.

‘Michelle and her boyfriend Robert have forsaken Clapham to buy a five bedroom house a stone’s throw from the working class estate where she grew up. Idealistically, she wants to be part of a community and see the turnaround in Birkenhead; to which her sister replies, with characteristic pragmatism: ‘I’d like to see that too.’ And, in the course of a grisly family party; Michelle discovers that her dad is living off false hopes of a return to the shipyards, that sister Donna is coping with a disturbed son and layabout partner, and that her niece, Kirsty, is a 16-year-old single mum psychotically hooked on fame.

‘What is refreshing about Wynne’s play is that , like The Knocky, it uses comedy as a vehicle for social criticism. We laugh at Donna’s obsession with psychic phenomena and her belief that something spooky has happened to all local pets. Only in a stunning first act climax do we see the connection between this and her catatonic son. Equally, her daughter Kirsty is first seen as a comic figure so besotted by fame that she ‘wouldn’t even mind having a stalker’. Only gradually do we learn that Kirsty is more dealer than wheeler. Liverpool’s centre may be enjoying a rebirth but, as Donna says, ‘One square mile of wealth doesn’t do anything for the surrounding twenty.’

‘Wynne’s territory is Birkenhead, but his theme has national resonance: that traditional manufacturing crafts and skills are being replaced by service industries and property developments. But Wynne’s skill lies in allowing his point to emerge through the interstices of a family comedy.

‘Dominic Cooke’s adroit production reinforces this by playing up the social embarrassments of an upwardly mobile daughter returning to her roots. Presenting her guests with vine leaves stuffed with rice, Michelle is shocked when they’re dismissed as ‘six shits on a plate’.

‘Sally Rogers as Michelle captures the awkwardness of a woman caught between two worlds and there is first rate support from Michelle Butterly as her down to earth sister, Sheridan Smith as her niece and Stephen Mangan as the furtive boyfriend. But really cheering is that Wynne has written a deeply political play while sending gales of unfamiliar laughter through the Royal Court.’

The Guardian

‘The day of family revelations is driven by robust humour and absurd, cruel ironies: Michelle’s sister Donna, works in a peanut factory but her son is allergic to nuts. Sadness and frustration seep through the comic cut and thrust.

‘In a strong cast, Stephen Mangan captures Robert’s fecklessness so well that you wonder why Sally Rogers’s competitive but vulnerable Michelle ever hooked up with him. Sheridan Smith is hilarious as Donna’s lippy daughter, Kirsty, who peddles drugs to fund a boob job that she sees as a guarantee of fame and fortune. Michelle Butterly is superb as Donna, whether loosing off another cutting comment (‘She’s got more kids than teeth’), sensing the menacing spirit world around her, or displaying a cynical resilience. And an opening night young Joe Cooper nearly stole the show as Donna’s additive filled, cat-strangling son.

‘At the end Michelle is left alone and literally holding the baby (full marks for using a real one) in the about-to-be painted living room in which most of the action takes place.

‘It’s typical of the unsentimental sympathy with which Wynne has treated his characters that his final moment doesn’t immediately suggest a bright new beginning. A big question mark still hangs over all their futures.’

The Times

‘Michael Wynne’s writing has Alan Bleasdale’s grittiness, Willy Russell’s sense of meolodrama, Jonathan (Gimme, Gimme, Gimme) Harvey’s scally campness, the cheek of The Live Birds, a keen eye, a sharp ear and a political nous that is all his own. He’s got that Mersey magic.

‘Wynne has a terrific talent for characterisation and his women in particular are drawn with a vividness that is matched by his affection.

‘Needless to say the party is a series of painful and painfully funny revelations which Dominic Cooke directs with wit, warmth and pace. It deserves to transfer.’

The Mail on Sunday

‘It’s got a scary child who looks like an ailing owl or a Midwich cuckoo; it’s got anxiously smiling Sue Jenkins (Brokside’s Jackie Corkhill); it’s got (thanks to Paul Arditti) the most sickening sound effect of the year. And it’s got snappy Sheridan Smith and fervent Sally Rogers. There won’t be many more immediately pleasurable plays this year than The People are Friendly.

‘Michael Wynne’s play is full of local surprises, patches of vividness – ‘You’ve got one of those dildo rails,’ a hapless mother exclaims to her socially aspiring daughter. But its underlying assumptions are totally familier. Girl from Birkenhead council estate goes South and posh, takes up with a public schoolboy (effete) and returns to wreak havoc (why?) in her home town.’

Observer

‘a piece that hits the funny bone with unerring accuracy.

‘The homecoming drama may be a familiar staple, but Wynne’s play offers a feast of crackling dialogue, sharply drawn characters and great jokes.

‘Wynne offers depth as well as comic pleasure. Ths is a stae-of-the-nation play, exploring class values, the painful transition from manufacturing to service industries, and the inane cult of celebrity.

‘This is the most entertainingly awful stage party since the one thrown in Mike Leight’s Abigail’s Party all those years ago.’

Telegraph