Rutherford and Son

Synopsis

John Rutherford has built up the business like his father before him and he naturally expects to pass it on to his eldest son. However, his son has other plans. He has something to sell, an invention that will release him from his father's tyranny and a future following in those laborious footsteps. With aspirations to achieve independence, make their own futures and find love, Rutherford's children have choices to make that may jeopardise the business and the family. This Edwardian classic and powerful drama is on a par with the work of Ibsen, Gorky and Granville Barker. It enjoyed huge success in London and New York, and was hailed as 'a remarkable play'.

Our Review:

Michael Coveney - 14 February 2013

Githa Sowerby's 1912 Tyneside domestic drama is a cracking good play given a superb production, at once flinty and beautiful, by Jonathan Miller for Northern Broadsides.

There’s a Yorkshire “edit” by poet Blake Morrison and, needless to say, a towering, high-decibel performance by Broadsides artistic director Barrie Rutter as John Rutherford, head of the family glassworks business, who rules the roost like a manic combination of Henry Horatio Hobson and King Lear.

The business is failing, but one of Rutherford’s sons (Jimmy Carr lookalike Nicholas Shaw) has hit on a recipe for a metal furnace that will lower production costs; but he wants to market this discovery himself, as a means of escape, not hand it over to his tyrannical and obsessive father.

The life is being squeezed out of the other son, too, vicar Richard (Andrew Grose), hired to maintain moral standards in the work-force, and also his 36 year-old daughter, spin...

Read more of the review

Latest User Review

ian klineberg - 14 February 2013:

stunning production of a rarely performed play, unmissable !!...

Read more and add your own review

Related Whatsonstage.com Articles

Miller's tale of yielding More»