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Review: A Manchester Anthem (Riverside Studios)

Review by Sam Waite

 

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

 

Some songs, Oxford-bound Tommy tells his audience, have memories attached to them, emotional beats irrevocably muddled amongst the chords. So to do plays, it would seem, as the moment I saw A Manchester Anthem mentioned in a press release for its new run at Riverside Studios, I was immediately filled with the tentative excitement which marked my previously experience with the show, as part of 2023’s VAULT Festival. Two years and countless shows later, there was a real sense of homecoming in this returning opportunity, this chance to see how my changed self might connect with this changed Anthem.

 

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Tommy, half-dressed and in a rush to leave for work, introduces himself with some light boasting. He’s the first member of his family to get into uni, the only one among his childhood friends, and in fact the only person on his street to get in anywhere. And of course, the big-little boast comes in the form of Oxford, the ubiquitously top-notch institution where he’s scored a place. An awkward run-in with some soon-to-be “contemporaries” derails Tommy’s plans for a night out with his two best friends, leading to an illuminating final night in Manchester as he learns more about those who he’ll spend three years surrounded by, and who he could become in that time.

 

Taking over from original director Charlie Norburn, Izzy Edwards guides this new production with assurance and a clear sense of the show’s Mancunian world. Having the audience further from the stage than at the Vaults, Norburn is able to freely use the space without concerns of sightlines becoming a challenge, and she keeps Tommy and co in motion to utilise every inch of Anna Niamh Gorman’s stage. Gorman uses light to mark the edge of the performance space, the boundary adding power and intrigue to moments where Tommy – and only Tommy – is seen crossing it. Wisely, the show maintains the carboard-box set-pieces and the associated homemade quality, because even in a bigger space and with a bigger audience, both Tommy and his surroundings have pulled themselves up from practically nothing into something – someone – worthy of admiration.

 

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Nick Dawkins’ script is still deeply impressive, bringing to life a night so distinct and individual and yet so increasingly familiar. The emotional beats lie just below this Anthem’s melody, continually played but with enough subtlety that their moments of impact still hit hard. The characters are drawn, entirely deliberately, in broad, caricaturesque strokes, the people who Tommy shares this fateful night with so firmly familiar to the idea of a posh crowd of young adults, right down to their expensive… powder habits, and ability to be genuinely friendly and cuttingly condescending in the same sentence. Dawkins’ writing is like the best songs, so ultra-specific and personal that it becomes an everyman story, one where anyone watching can forge a deep, intimate connection to the central figure.

 

And of course, a great deal of the play’s repeated success is down to the performance of returning lead Tom Claxton. From the moment his Tommy notices the audience – wide-eyed realisation covering his face as he adjusts his underwear to provide that little bit more dignity – he carries the piece with a comedic flair and touch of sardonic wit that make an hour in his company fly by. So adept is he at creating the other characters, his posture and expressions morphing in an instant to present the artsy rich kid, the stuck up socialite-to-be, the posh-boy de facto leader, that it’s almost a jolt when he returns more fully to playing simply Tommy, a young man finding himself in situations and circumstances beyond what anyone could have expected from him.


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Both Dawkins and Claxton do their finest work in the powerful final scenes, in which Tommy must reconcile his promising future with not only his troubled background, but also his warped, ever-confusing present. While I wish the throughline of a favourite song being linked to the best memories, and the fear of it being ruined by a single bad experience, had been more consistently pushed to the forefront, the payoff does still land beautifully. These moments between Tommy and his family, those purest representations of who he was and who he could be, are where that sense of specificity proving familiar to everyone.

 

As bold and booming as its debut, A Manchester Anthem is a triumph of class-identity politics on stage, and explores gloriously the conflicting ideals of needing your life to change while desperate to remain the person you are. Tommy has beaten the odds to secure his place at a top university, and A Manchester Anthem has proven equally as worthy of adulation, and demonstrates a deep understanding of how pride and self-doubt can intermingle.

 

A Manchester Anthem plays at Riverside Studios until September 13th 

 

 

Photos by Flood Ltd.

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