The Royal Court presents the Contact production of

What's in the Cat ( Archived )

The Royal Court presents the Contact production of

By Linda Brogan

7 December - 22 December 2005

Jerwood Theatre Upstairs

All productions

Lauren’s come back for Christmas dinner, but she’s not staying. They’ve found her a place with a creche so she can do her exams. Dad thinks she should stay home and Mum thinks she should have kept her legs shut. It’s Moss Side 1974.

Design: Libby Watson

Lighting: James Farncombe

Cast: Geoff Aymer, Rachel Brogan, Curtis Cole, Mary Jo Randle, David Webber

WHAT’S IN THE CAT was developed during a residency at Contact. Linda Brogan’s work includes a production of BASIL AND BEATTIE (Royal Exchange/Liverpool Everyman) and commissions by Wolsey/Tricycle (The Very Thought of You),Clean Break (Black Crows) and Contact (Ghost Town). She was a winner of the Alfred Fagon Award in 2001.

Paulette Randall is the former Artistic Director of Talawa Theatre company. Her previous work for the Royal Court was BLEST BE THE TIE. Other work includes URBAN AFRO SAXONS (Stratford East), KING HEDLEY II (Tricycle / Birmingham Rep), FUNNY BLACK WOMEN ON THE EDGE, SHOOT TO WIN, VARIOUS POSSE SHOWS (Stratford East), TWO TRAINS RUNNING, UP AGAINST THE WALL (Tricycle), THE AMEN CORNER (Bristol Old Vic), SANCTUARY (Joint Stock), FOR COLOURED GIRLS WHO HAVE CONSIDERED SUICIDE, WHEN THE RAINBOW IS NOT ENUF (BAC / Albany Empire), MOON ON A RAINBOW SHAWL (Nottingham). Work for television includes KERCHING!, DESMOND’S, THE REAL McCOY, PORKPIE, MARVIN, COMIN’ ATCHA and BLOUSE AND SKIRT.

Reviews

Bah Humbug. Thats what Ebenezer Scrooge thought about Christmas. It’s a phrase that also sums up the festive attitude of the family in Linda Brogan’s What’s in the Cat, though her characters express their feelings in more ear-witheringly offensive four-letter terms than Dickens’s loveable old curmudgeon.

It’s Christmas Day, 1974, and tensions are running high in the Lawrence household in Manchester’s Moss Side. Jamaican dad Bogey has threatened to leave potty-mouthed Irish mum Margaret, while pregnant teenage daughter Lauren is moving out permanently in pursuit of childcare facilities.

Will the spirit of Christmas bring about a heart-warming reconciliation among the warring clan? Will it f**k, as heavy-drinking Margaret might say.

Brogan paints an evocative and unsentimental portrait of frustrated lives. She conjures powerful emotions, too, although the enigmatic script doesn’t always provide enough clues about where these are coming from to allow the audience to share them fully.

There is also humour in Paulette Randall’s well-acted production: brothers Bogey (David Webber) and Lee (Geoff Aymer) make a fine clownish double act, and Mary- Jo Randle’s Margaret is an occasionally comic tour de force of bad language and fearsome recriminations.

There is biblical symbolism, too: Lauren (the playwright’s daughter Rachel Brogan) looks ready to give birth at any moment, and Libby Watson’s handsome wood-framed set resembles a barn more than a house. Interesting, if depressing.

Robert Shore, METRO, 15 December 2005.

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