Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
Cast: Neil Macdonald, Mark Lacey, Kate Tracey, Pamela Ashton, Kier Howard, Kelly Forshaw.
The streets of Britain’s biggest cities were once proudly stocked with all manner of public houses. They are still there of course but the smaller, more neighbouring ones, the places where true conversation about local issues took place and the community could come together as one to celebrate, to communicate and commiserate together rather than being bombarded with noise and 24 hour drinking culture, those are slowly being left to rot, to die upon the alter of greater profits and the notion that they don’t matter anymore. Closing Time is no longer the utterance of the head barman or the landlady finally having had enough for the night and requiring bed.
There is nothing new about staging a play inside a public house, the time before Shakespeare had the singular notion that there should be a playhouse in which his considerable talent and tremendous works might forever get top billing and not be subject to a cock fight being considered more thrilling than Richard III, it was the only place in town to put on a show. It might not be new but it is very Avant-garde in its outlook for the 21st Century, especially when the play looks at not just the demise of a family unit and society in which truth is alien concept to a section of society but also to the great British public house also.
No matter what can be said the fact that supermarkets encourage the unsocial effects of drinking alone by offering cheap bitter and lager at silly prices, it is the knock on effect to what is the heart of any community and the safety in which like minded people, whether it is the single pint after work or the crib and darts team providing the feeling of togetherness in numbers in which the real victims of Government deregulation find suffering.
For Scott Murphy, the super cast and The Caledonia public house, the idea and performance of Closing Time is something that lights the way, which gives hope in a world that at time is devoid of such sentiment. It is also unafraid to hit out at the social blights that rob so many of that hope, developers who rip the soul out of an area in hope to feed the slug like figure which goes under the name of “the economy” and the drug peddlers who prey on the young and suggestible, nothing is left out when calling Time on the ills of society.
With very cool performances by the cast, including Neil Macdonald as the recently bereaved landlord, Closing Time is perhaps to be seen as unique artistry in Liverpool, one that places back into the community in which it is meant to represent; for that it deserves acclaim.
Ian D. Hall