Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Vanessa Schofield, Perry Moore, Suzanne Ahmet, Andrew Price, Howard Chadwick, Victoria Brazier, Anthony Hunt, Darren Kuppan, Claire Storey, Paul Barnhill.

It is often the case to congratulate Northern Broadsides when they come to Liverpool, a much loved theatre company to who much has always been appreciated and taken to the audience’s hearts, they have always given themselves the hardest of challenges by producing theatre that has struck a chord with the times we find ourselves in.

Never afraid to tackle a subject or a play which to some might shy away from, in which the structure and demands of the piece might be too daunting, Northern Broadsides take the leap into the new dawn of their raison d’être and tackle arguably one of the more demanding of Charles Dickens works, the rarely performed but sincerely captured, Hard Times.

It is perhaps testimony to Deborah McAndrew’s wonderful ability to adapt works, whether in the form of the excellent Dario Fo’s Accidental Death Of An Anarchist or Gogol’s The Government Inspector, that Hard Times is as accessible as it is, that it flows with the resonance that one of Britain’s finest and most captivating writers intended. This accessible venture is further given credit by Conrad Nelson’s directing, a task to which he so obviously relishes but to one which now takes on greater responsibility as he is now the man to whom this all falls to as the great Barrie Rutter steps away from the company.

It is not really a surprise that Hard Times has been rarely tackled, a great novel does not always equate to perfect adaptation, even when it has, it suffers from the weight of truth and brutality of the age that is not in evidence in Oliver Twist, Great Expectations or A Christmas Carol, perhaps it is down to the very nature of the storyline, the lack of hope, the placing of the storyline in the industrial north that so many who have never studied the lives of the people in the area, would not feel the compassion for the lives of Steven Blackpool or Louisa Gradgrind.

Yet, for Northern Broadsides and everything they bring to the stage, the musical expression and the sense of duty they hold to northern theatre, Hard Times is undoubtedly a wonderful gift, gritty realism, honest appraisal of subjects such as depression and the lack of support to worker’s when frozen out by their unions, at times holding hands with the desire to find humour in the smallest of exchanges and others a demonstration of hard won affection. Hard Times is not by any stretch of the imagination a book that lends itself well to the theatre but when left in the hands of a theatre company such as Northern Broadsides, is one that can stand proud and be applauded with ease.

Ian D. Hall