Hobson's Choice

Synopsis

Salford 1880. Hobson is a cobbler aiming to marry off his two youngest daughters. Maggie, his eldest at 30, is already an old maid - so she can stay at home and look after him! But Maggie has other ideas and finds herself a husband - and with him they open a rival shoe shop! First produced in 1916.

Our Review:

30 May 2006

Harold Brighouse wrote his heart-warming tale of the boot hand pulled up in the world by his bootstraps through the love of a good woman in 1914/15, although he set it in 1880, the year his parents became engaged. A product of the Manchester school of drama inspired by local life, it’s set in the Salford of his childhood.

An almost comic take on King Lear, it charts the uneasy relationship between selfish alcoholic Hobson, proprietor of Hobson’s Bootmakers, and his three daughters. In their flight from his domination into the arms of their chosen partners, they’re led by Maggie, the eldest. She’s determined not to remain on the shelf at thirty, despite her father’s best endeavours to keep her at home, so he can live off sales and business acumen that would make her Alan Sugar’s uncontested choice!

Alice and Vickey need Maggie’s intervention to get their men - a lawyer and merchant respectively. But far-sighted Maggie spots the potential in the down-trodden boothan...

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Latest User Review

84.64.85.74) - 25 June 2006:

It was brilliant I loved it the first time I saw it, so i'm going again! The best production I have ever seen at the watermill or anywhere else. Paul Kemp and Anna-Jane casey gave a fantastic performance as did the rest of the cast. Brilliant!...

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