Review: Rock ‘n’ Roll at the Library Theatre, Manchester

Feb 24 2009 Chester Chronicle

ROCK ‘N’ ROLL/Library Theatre, Manchester, until March 14

REVIEW/by Peggy Woodcock

IT STARTS with a Pink Floyd ‘Pan’ playing the pipes on a garden wall and ends with a roaring Rolling Stones concert.

In between there was an unlikely love story, tragic death, secret spying, tested friendship and, oh, a maelstrom of politics, ethics, and philosophical debate. This was classic Tom Stoppard, with a twist.

This was Monday’s performance of Rock ’n’ Roll, the playwright’s London smash hit, in its regional premiere at Manchester’s Library’s Theatre. And this was my second viewing, to appreciate again the superb writing - and the twist, the great rock’n’roll soundtrack.

Moving between Cambridge and Prague, the play was about Czechoslovakian history and the English way of life. Moving from 1968 to 1990, it it was a story of human and political conflict. Moving from the personal to the political, it alternately engrossed and entertained.

Max was a Cambridge don and communist who had ‘put his thumbprint’ on student Jan, almost one of the family. Or had he? Just why did Jan elect to go back to his occupied home country, leaving behind Esme, Max’s daughter, and her teenage crush.

He took up with political firebrand Ferdinand and activities that were politics wrapped up in music and inspired by the unseen figures of the Plastic People. These musicians went to prison rather than cut their hair. Well, they would have to cut their songs next, right?

Back home Max got angrier and wife Eleanor lectured on Greek language and Sappho but lost a losing battle with cancer. They raged over mind versus body and Esme wandered off to a commune…

In sharp, episodic scenes, with a cleverly divided set, director Chris Honer kept up a pay-attention pace and created tension while making room for much ironic .humour. And always the writing was on the wall, literally, in the form of song lyrics as we ran the gamut of 60’s and 70’s music: Dylan, Stones, Grateful Dead, Guns ‘n’ Roses, U2. And Pink Floyd. Especially Floyd, whose legendary musician Syd Barratt, was a ghostly off-screen presence.

The production did justice to this unusual, unique play, as did the ensemble cast. Hilton McCrae’s splendidly irascible, obtuse Max, deserves mention as does Cate Hamer’s raging yet poignant portrayal of Eleanor.

Graeme Hawley’s Jan was laid back, perhaps too much so, but then he was a perfect foil to other firebrand characters. It was excellent theatre (perhaps not mentioning some rather dreadful wigs!)