Bute Theatre, Royal Welsh College Of Music And Drama, Cardiff

Tue 27 July 2010

words: Harriet Davies

Not Too Tame Theatre’s production of Trevor Griffiths television-come-stage play, Oi for England is set in 1981 Manchester, and follows the moral dilemma of four young skinheads as they battle between furthering their musical careers and avoiding involvement with a right-wing racially motivated rally. However, despite the introduction provided on the programme, the play seemed to come to a vague end after only just over half an hour, and was left open-ended and unexplained. Following a supposedly poignant scene in which one of the English nationalist skinhead band members, Finn, secretly acknowledges his Irish roots by singing an Irish folk song to himself, the stage lights went out. At this point I was fully expecting an Act Two to follow, but instead the entire cast walked on stage and took a bow. I could tell from the slightly scattered applause that I wasn’t the only one who assumed the performance had not yet come to a natural end.

Despite the weakness of the play itself, the acting in this production deserves a good deal of praise. The Manchester accents were almost completely convincing, and remained pretty consistent throughout the performance. The characters of the four band members were easily distinguishable from each other, although had little opportunity to develop properly due to the fast pace and short length of the play. Most importantly, their portrayal of the rough-and-ready working class culture of early Thatcherism was both compelling and impressive.

The live music also added a unique and entertaining dimension to the play, and the issues raised about racism and social discontent draw a number of allusions to contemporary British society, a thought that lingered in my mind long after the closing curtain.