REVIEW: Two / Green Room Productions

By Gary Murray, volunteer theatre reviewer

To the Lamb Theatre in Old Town, Eastbourne, to see the staging by Green Room Productions of Northern playwright Jim Cartwright’s play Two.

You may be familiar with Jim Cartwright’s work through the 1998 film Little Voice, starring Jane Horrocks and Michael Caine.

Two, written in 1989 is set in a northern pub, once the heart of the community and now dying out. Think Coronation Street’s Rovers Return. Over the course of one evening we meet various drinkers who frequent the place.

Two actors, here James Hookway and Sandra Cheesman, who also directs, play all characters.

At the centre of it are a landlady and landlord. Behind the professional bonhomie lies a marriage riven by bickering and bitterness:

Landlord (about his wife):“That roving tart.”

Landlady (about her husband): “I’m the brains behind the operation … sipping away on Piggo’s profits.”  

By the end of the night the anguished reason for this hostility becomes clear. A child, carelessly left behind by one of the drinkers, becomes the catalyst to open the emotional floodgates.

Through a series of short scenes we meet various members of the pub’s clientele, by turns wistful, lonely and poetic.

These roles are deftly handled by the performers. While some offer more than a nod to comedian Victoria Wood, at one point there is a chilling change in tone when we encounter Lesley and her partner Roy, an abusive controlling horror of a man.

The Lamb Theatre is a function room above The Lamb Inn. With its beer pumps and bar, it’s possibly the perfect setting for this play. I did think though that the audience were too much set back from the action. I’d have liked things a little tighter.

The run at the Lamb, which finishes tonight (Saturday 7 March), is sold out as are the shows on 13 – 14 March at the Harveys Warehouse Fringe Theatre in Lewes.

Green Room Productions was founded in 2009 with the aim of producing contemporary plays. It is the resident theatre company at The Lamb Theatre.

:: Gary Murray was a professional actor for 14 years in theatre, radio, TV and even a couple of operas. After many years on the tech side of the ticketing industry, he now works at Tech Resort and is a volunteer reviewer for Eastbourne Reporter