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I have seen the Royal Exchange Theatre converted to a Bingo Hall, but I’ve never seen it as a very realistic pub.

The landlord, James Quinn, pulls pints from a fully-fitted bar whilst customers play darts and take a chance on the fruit machines. When he greets me, I joke that I am writing about him and, if he does anything wrong, I’ll get the brewery to kick him out!  He takes it in good spirit.

This pub is the sort of down-to-earth place that has kept communities together for hundreds of years but is now under threat. In the play, A Free House by actor Roger Morlidge and Director, Chris Meads, the cast mingle with the customers telling tales as they go.

Chief story teller is Morlidge playing Mike, who chats about his three-year-old son as the jazzed up version of “What a Friend we Have in Jesus” is played on an old Joanna. Then he turns to his relationship with his own father who carries him on his shoulders at a football match.

Other customers join in with similar stories and, suddenly, you realise that in this happy, boozy atmosphere a serious point is being made about how men interact with their own fathers and sons. Some of the customers are not all they seem.  They are members of the Royal Exchange’s education department who chip in from time to time with moments of drama.

Occasionally the pauses between sentences are too long and the pace a little slow which does jar slightly.

But it was my loss, the theatre’s gain that I had to sup alone.  When I asked to bring a friend, I was told the Studio Theatre wasn’t just a free house but a full house.This proves the popularity of the concept.   It’s an unusual experience because you feel involved the whole time, and it's definitely worth repeating in the future.

- Julia Taylor

Pub enters its third week with another theatrical double bill each of which has some exceptional features. In The Love Shift Anna (Leah Hackett) waits in frustration for her boyfriend under the watchful, almost voyeuristic, gaze of barman Charlie (David Hunter) whose love for her is unspoken. Around them revolve other pub regulars played, along with boyfriend Steve, by Craig Whittaker.

This is a knowing but not cynical look at pub culture and even love. What makes it audacious is that writer and director Janine Waters and songwriter Dom Waters have made it an opera! The entire score is played on the pub piano and sung by the cast weaving in and out of the audience. Hackett and Whittaker sing well and Hunter’s comedic skills compensate for his difficulty reaching some notes. The show, however, does not really rise above being a novelty as the songs are used to add exposition rather (with the exception of egotistical boyfriend Steve) to develop the characters. It is only the skill of the cast that makes us care.

Describing the casting for Jiggery Pokery makes it sound like a gimmick as Carry On.. star Charles Hawtrey, along with over a dozen other characters, are brought to life by a single female performer. However, the insightful and moving interpretation by Amanda Lawrence turns this potential weakness into strength. Her slender frame recalls Hawtrey’s bird-like body and her gender suggests how many of Hawtrey’s problems could be attributed to his contempt for the sex into which he was born.

This is anything but a whitewashed version of a life. Hawtrey is shown as a self-loathing, foul mouthed and predatory alcoholic. Yet Lawrence draws sympathy for someone who never really got the acclaim, or pay, that his talent deserved and who was consumed by guilt for coming to feel ashamed of the mother he should have loved.

The play does not really suit the Pub concept. It seems unsympathetic to tell the tale of an alcoholic in such a location and Cathy Wren’s nicely worn backstage dressing room set is designed for a more conventional theatre than the pub layout. Yet director Paul Hunter ensures that Lawrence takes advantage of the unique location to interact direct with the audience.

Biographical details, such as the source of Hawtrey’s stage name, are communicated with economy. We are given fascinating hints of what could have been including the possibility of Hawtrey playing Andrew Augecheek to Olivier’s Malvolio. Hawtrey’s scenes in various films are re-created in an imaginative and very funny way with Lawrence miming to a recorded soundtrack in perfect synchronisation.

Jiggery Pokery is a moving and powerful story of someone who is far from admirable but for whom one has to feel sympathy.

- Dave Cunningham

Earlier this year the Royal Exchange transformed its main house into a bingo hall. Now they have turned their studio theatre into a pub with James Quinn playing the affable landlord. The concept seems to have caught on and has attracted a good level of attendance.

The set, by Neil Gigley and Amanda Stoodley, contains all the essential elements of a pub. The walls are decorated by brass plates and fading photographs. There is a jukebox, pool table and fruit machines and the bar serves draft bitter - even if it is only Holts.

The evening comprises two short plays. You Do It All Again, created and directed by Ben Fowler and Yann Seabra, makes excellent use of the pub set utilising the lights over the tables and the songs on the jukebox to create a suitable atmosphere.

Tom (Tom Hall) and Anna (Anna McSweeney) emerge from, and sit with, the audience for a blind date. Their conversation subtlety explores the role of alcohol as a social stimulant and aphrodisiac and asks whether we only really show our true selves when intoxicated. The naturalistic performances of Hall and McSweeney are made all the more amusing by exaggerated sequences in which the actors portray the thoughts of the characters.

After this fine opening we are given Rum and Vodka, a moving monologue by Conor Mcpherson. Director Ed Viney takes a more conventional approach by using the raised stage rather than placing the actor within the audience. This allows us to concentrate on a strong performance by Eoin Slattery in a powerful play. Slattery delivers a monologue that shows both his dependency on alcohol and the way it has, if not wrecked, certainly shaped his life.

As he recounts the circumstances that led to a three-day lost weekend, Slattery unconsciously reveals not only how he is becoming dependent upon alcohol to function but also how it has determined the path that his life has taken. This is conveyed in a monologue that is very funny even if it also makes you squirm with embarrassment and, occasionally, because the details are familiar.

Slattery performs with great insight. We are given a character who, through his criticism of the faults of others, shows the extent of his own self-loathing and seems to be always approaching the level of self-awareness needed to make a change but held back by his own flaws.

You have to appreciate the irony of being given insight into the joys and perils of alcohol in a pub of all places.

-Dave Cunningham

The 82 bus from Oldham to Manchester traverses one of the longest pub crawls in the country. Rather, it used to. The journey is now punctuated by boarded up boozers - victims of the credit crunch and urban gentrification. It makes for a sorry spectacle.

Under the auspices of producer Richard Morgan, the Royal Exchange’s Pub aims to fulfil two functions, acting as a celebration of the great British public house – with its attendant ideas of community and conviviality – and a showcase for work by new directors. With a rolling programme, audiences are guaranteed a different experience each night. The brochure teases with promises of something ‘exhilarating’ and ‘unmissable.’ Judging by tonight’s offering, it’s a claim that’s pretty wide of the mark.

The designers have done an impeccable job in transforming the Studio space; there are tacky carpets on the floor, brass plates on the wall and a spit and sawdust bar serving Holts Ales. Local actor James Quinn – one of the coppers in TV’s Early Doors – plays the landlord, and makes an engaging host. There’s an interactive jukebox raffle; buy a ticket, win a record and either play it yourself or ask the DJ to do so. There’s a smattering of drama behind the optics in the shape of a romance between one of the customers and the pub barmaid (played by the attractive, sparky Claire Disley).  

A pub quiz provides the focus of the evening. No, really. As someone who enjoys quizzes, I was happy to be there. Though it raises the question - is this theatre? Well … no. It’s not even art. It’s not even a particularly good quiz (for their trouble, the winning team received a box of Matchmakers; the word ‘dismal’ doesn’t even come close).

Forced Entertainment’s Quizoola used a similar format for more subversive ends, with questions about popular culture juxtaposed against existential debate (‘why is modern life such rubbish?’) I was hoping for more of the same but it’s all rather predictable. Our team – Sparkle Motion! - came fourth (respect to Becci and Paolo for their general knowledge expertise).    
 
It’s a fun night out but make a point of checking the Pub programme before deciding whether or not to buy a ticket.

- Steve Timms