“Will Mossop, you take your orders from me in this shop.
I’ve told you, my lad – you’ll wed me!”
Hobson’s Choice
by Harold Brighouse
Newcastle People’s Theatre
Tuesday 30th May to Saturday 3rd June 2017
The People’s Theatre is delighted to invite audiences
into Hobson’s Boot Shop next week for Harold Brighouse’s much-loved northern
comedy Hobson’s Choice.
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Photos: Paula Smart
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In 1880s Salford, the prosperous
bootmaker Henry Hobson (Steve Robertson, pictured, centre) is a widower with
three “uppity” daughters on his hands.
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Willie (Ian Willis) and
Maggie (Alison Carr)
Photos: Paula Smart
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The two youngest have beaus they’d like to marry,
but Hobson’s too mean to stump up a dowry.
And when his eldest daughter Maggie sets her sights
on Hobson’s best employee, hapless cobbler Willy Mossop, there’s nowt but
trouble ahead for the blustery, boozy, patriarch.
Brighouse’s classic comedy is an established
favourite. First staged in 1915 in New York, and produced the
following year in London, it was adapted into a
film in 1953 directed by David Lean and starring Charles Laughton as Hobson.
The cast also included Prunella Scales in one of her first film roles as
bumptious youngest daughter Vickey.
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Mrs Hepworth (Barbara
Johnson)
and Willie (Ian Willis)
Photos:
Paula Smart
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The film won a British Film Academy Award for Best
British Film and was hailed “delightful and rewarding” and “a gem” by critics.
At the time it was written, in the wake of the
women’s suffrage movement, Hobson’s Choice was considered fairly progressive
and these days its presentation of no-nonsense Maggie, who wears the trousers
as well as the boots, remains an interesting topic of discussion and debate.
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Dr MacFarlane (Michael
Short)
and Jim (Tony Neale)
Photos: Paula Smart
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Think Shakespeare meets Coronation Street, as there’s more than a
hint of King Lear in Brighouse’s
portrayal of Hobson, a wilting domestic tyrant brought low by his daughters!
Hobson’s Choice may be more than a hundred years old,
but it’s a comedy classic that has lost none of its relevance in taking a sly
dig at enduring and entrenched British ideas of class, aspiration, and
snobbery.
Tickets:
Tickets cost £13.50 (Concessions £11) and are
available from the box office 0191 265 5020 or website: www.peoplestheatre.co.uk
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