Synopsis Romford Market 1985, where a boy has everything to learn: the art of selling stilettos, learning a good wind-up, discovering sex, alcohol and drugs, the temptations of cash and how to stay sharp in the savage world of Essex traders. Market Boy is a spectacular yarn about the time Mrs Thatcher said we should embrace the marketplace; a story about the loss of innocence. Part of the £10 Travelex Season
Market Boy - which reunites Festen’s playwright and director, David Eldridge and Rufus Norris - received its world premiere at the National Theatre last night (6 June 2006) as the second production in this year’s Travelex £10 Season in the NT Olivier.
Set in Romford Market in 1985, a young boy learns the lessons of Thatcherite economics, capitalism, and life, to a soundtrack of Eighties pop classics. The cast features Claire Rushbrook (Festen), Jonathan Cullen, Callum Dixon, Paul Moriarty and Freddy Boy with Danny Worters as the title character. Market Boy continues in rep until 3 August 2006.
First night critics enjoyed reminiscing about the highs and lows of the “greed is good” decade and largely agreed that Norris’ production of Eldridge’s play is both spectacular and amusing. While there were concerns about the underdevelopment of some characters, and the relatively muted tone of the Thatcher-bashing, several critics drew favourable comparisons with Ben Jonson’s Jacobean classic Bartholomew Fair.
** DON’T MISS our Whatsonstage.com Outing to Market Boy on 19 July 2006 - including FREE drink, post-show Q&A with Rufus Norris & FREE signed programmes for first 50 bookers – all for only £15!! - click here for more details! **
Michael Coveney on Whatsonstage.com - Coveney compared Market Boy to "a modern Bartholomew Fair, an affectionate visitation of (Eldridge’s) own youth in Romford market during the 1980s, and a rites-of-passage parable of withdrawn new lad on the block Boy (Danny Worters) finding his voice and losing his cherry…. Eldridge and his director Rufus Norris serve up a wonderful parade of market life and lore... Eldridge captures something of the mood and, yes, suburban poetry, of that time with unerring accuracy.” Coveney added: “Katrina Lindsay’s gorgeous design of mobile market stalls and a huge iron gantry allows for some breathtaking stage compositions and choreography (by Scott Graham and Steven Hoggett of Frantic Assembly).”
Paul Taylor in the Independent - “The protagonist's rite of passage from innocent boy to disillusioned young man is mapped against the country's own journey from the boom of the late Eighties to the recession of the early Nineties. But if it's ultimately a morality tale, there is nothing in the least preachy about Rufus Norris' highly engaging production in which 30 actors playing over 50 roles create a vitalising sense of the anything-goes energy and euphoria of the period. Mrs Thatcher's periodic cartoon-like appearances as the acclaimed mythic heroine visiting her heartland have a loopy comic charm… The drawback in the first half is that unlike, say, Ben Jonson's comparable Jacobean comedy, Bartholomew Fair, with its contrast between traders and Puritans, the play doesn't rustle a plot or clash of values…. But the show still feels wonderfully theatrical without being sufficiently dramatic. It's an exhilarating piece of stage-craft… Tricking us into nostalgia (with the Eighties pop hits) before bringing us back to our senses, the show blows a juicy kiss to the Eighties through a V-sign.”
Michael Billington in the Guardian - “Rufus Norris' stunning production… vibrantly colonises the vast Olivier stage. The action follows the induction of the naive 13-year-old hero, who works on a shoe stall, into the joys of selling, sex, ecstasy, Essex banter, and life at large. The play might almost be called Birth of a Salesman; except that, as things fall apart and the economy goes into free-fall, the hero gets out and heads for the formalised lottery of the City. It's a teeming, hyperactive play… what is impressive is the kaleidoscopic skill with which Eldridge organises his material. If I have any complaint, it is that Eldridge lets Thatcher off lightly. She is viewed iconically rather than ironically… There is immense pleasure to be had from Norris's exuberant production. An empty stage miraculously fills up, in Katrina Lindsay's design, with steel frames and stalls overflowing with fish, meat, fruit and veg, records, and clothes. Norris also wittily reinforces Eldridge's point that a street market is itself a form of theatre: one in which there's no business like shoebusiness… Other plays may have viewed the 1980s more critically. But I can't think of any that have caught so well, whatever we may think of it, its insane capitalist fervour.”
Sam Marlowe in The Times - “Like much of Eldridge’s writing, Market Boy is rooted in his Essex upbringing; unlike his usual social realism, it explodes with vivid theatricality. And it’s the most fun I’ve had at the theatre in ages… Trembling on a stage bare but for a central, towering steel scaffold, Boy steps into a spotlight. Frankie Goes to Hollywood’s ‘Relax’ pumps out, and, through a rear wall bearing a Tory electoral poster bursts a transit van… They construct the market on a giant revolve before the astonished eyes of both Boy and audience… It’s bold, brash, and fabulous. It’s also overlong, and there’s little complexity to its parade of characters…. But nuance would be out of place in a portrayal of an era devoid of subtlety — and such audacity means you’ll forgive Eldridge and Norris almost anything. This production has a true spirit of daring — it’s exhilarating.”
- by Caroline Ansdell
** DON’T MISS our Whatsonstage.com Outing to Market Boy on 19 July 2006 - including FREE drink, post-show Q&A with Rufus Norris & FREE signed programmes for first 50 bookers – all for only £15!! - click here for more details! **
Market Boy is the latest production in the Travelex £10 Season in the NT Olivier and should prove popular with a local London audience, especially one with Essex connections. In writing to the requirements of the large stage, author David Eldridge has provided a modern Bartholomew Fair, an affectionate visitation of his own youth in Romford market during the 1980s, and a rites-of-passage parable of withdrawn new lad on the block Boy (Danny Worters) finding his voice and losing his cherry.
Although the tempo sags a little in the second half as the boom years give way to bust and Thatcher (Nicola Blackwell in a tremendous lacquered wig and Spitting Image face mask) bids farewell to Downing Street (metaphorically twin-towned with Romford), Eldridge and his director Rufus Norris (with whom he last collaborated on Festen) serve up a wonderful parade of market life and lore.
The show starts with a trader’s van bursting through a stage-wide poster, “Labour Isn’t Working”, and ends with a thoroughly initiated Boy jumping through another one, the “Hello Boys” ad for Wonderbra. In between, Paul Arditti’s sound design bathes the action in chart hits of the Eighties and patriotic songs. Boy is apprenticed to a shoe stall, and the opening 20 minutes is an immensely funny fashion show of the regulars, compered by Gary McDonald’s wise-cracking, lecherous Trader: mother and daughter in matching pink leather and platinum blonde wigs; the foul-mouthed old woman in surgical stockings and a walking frame; a thieving gypsy, a contemptuous transvestite; and the Most Beautiful Woman in Romford, whom Jemma Walker presents as a sharp-tongued, skimpily clad opportunist riding the wave of the “greed is good” society.
You could argue that too many characters are left undeveloped, but even Ben Jonson is guilty on that score. Eldridge, whose previous plays are smaller in scale and quieter in tone, is taking his main subject – the relatively prosperous, lower middle-class overspill from the old East End into the new settlements of Romford, Ilford, Seven Kings and Chadwell Heath in the 1930s –and painting on a broader, more ambitious canvas.
These outposts have changed again dramatically since the 1980s, but Eldridge captures something of the mood and, yes, suburban poetry, of that time with unerring accuracy. Introducing a ferocious market inspector (Paul Moriarty), he cleverly weaves in some local history, with a pair of Roman legionnaires and one of Romford’s famous modern sons, snooker champion Steve Davis (John Marquez), belying his “boring” image with a break-dancing, cue-twirling routine.
A sense of the new Tory heartland is conveyed in the vociferous rejection of a Labour Party candidate, and Dennis Potter’s Pennies from Heaven, a major television drama series of the day, is evoked when Boy discovers Mum (Claire Rushbrook) in flagrante in the trader’s van. Katrina Lindsay’s gorgeous design of mobile market stalls and a huge iron gantry allows for some breathtaking stage compositions and choreography (by Scott Graham and Steven Hoggett of Frantic Assembly).
There are beautiful cameo performances from Ruth Sheen as a fruitseller, Sophie Stanton as a butch fish woman and Jonathan Cullen as the uncompromising meat man. I only wish the dreadful microphoning in the Olivier was either ditched altogether or improved. Can no one speak without enhancement in this space any more?
Well six of us went and loved it, three of us are going again next week. Okay, it's not going to change the world, but it was a tremendously entertaining, energetic and downright funny evening. It'll be a long time before I get the image of Maggie Thatcher and her lobster claws out of my mind. The choreography was reminiscent of a musical (one of my least favourite ways to spend an evening), but it really worked for me. Apparently the Evening Standard recommends it for kids over 5 which is staggering, wholly inappropriate for anyone under 15 in my opinion. But we're all in our 30s, and we loved it. - 86.144.35.66)
14 Aug 06
It's strange how a play which originally generated so much negativity from its previews now appears to by the positive word of mouth looks to have found its audience (no doubt helped by the £10 offer) as last night the thetare was packed - and deservedly so. It's a good audience show that plays unashamedly to it's audience. It's also one of those productions in which the NT excels at. The stage is constantly revoliving and involving and the performances are all believable. Sure it won't win Best Play of the Year - but for staging and entertainment factor it's certainly worth catching and the audience last night roared their approval. - 62.6.181.62)
04 Aug 06
Loved it. going again tonight. The National Theatre audiences never change...boring old farts! This is what London needs and what the National needs...plays should now be aimed at young, fresh audiences as you lot (original NTers) will not be here much longer! - 195.93.21.67)
01 Aug 06
An enjoyable nostalgia ride with lots of spectacle, but not with an awful lot of point to it. It's performed enthusiastically well by the cast, but at some stages the thin plot is dragged out for longer than it should be. It's worth a go for ten pound. - 86.144.189.229)
01 Aug 06
This is modern theatre at it's best. Hats off to the current regime at the national, never in a million years did I think a show like this would find it's way on to the Olivier stage, normally reserved for safe revivals of the classics and musicals that the middle class can drool over. This is a play with balls, big, brash, in yer face, loud. With a cast of at least thirty Eldridge's play transports the audience to Essex in the eightys with a wonderful array of characters that the cast more than did justice to. Fine the structure of the writing wavers at times, but to be honest I didnt care, this is the most amount of fun you will currently see on the London stage and God knows we all need a bit of that. Rufis Norris, surely currently one of our best directors, tames the Olivier stage like an old master, his production is always alive and always vivid. People were walking out, but they were only the nationals accumulated bourgois (Previously mentioned) they couldnt believe that a show of such striking courage and originality was playing before their eyes, it was too much for the old dears. BOOK BEFORE ITS TOO LATE!!!! - 80.225.173.14)
26 Jul 06
It is only when one sees bad theatre that one appreciates good. In this production one is still waiting - 195.93.21.67)
23 Jul 06
Deliriously entertaining!! Those old grumps who didn't like it make me feel depressed. - 86.136.187.88)
21 Jul 06
I feel so sorry for the one star reviewers. It must be a sad experience to live in a world that doesn't allow you to open up to such a fun, exciting and energising piece of theatre.. true theatre. - 81.156.252.159)
09 Jul 06
I JUST HAD TO ADD MY 3 PENNETH! and say I have to agree with the one *'s. One wonders how a company like the National could let it get so far as a full staging? They've had a real run of bad luck recently. Once in a Lifetime, The Royal Hunt of the Sun, and most recently The Seagull all dire. I'm off to see The Life of Galileo tonight and I'm begining to feel rather nervous about it! LOL - 195.93.21.66)
06 Jul 06
It really is offensive rubbish. I disagree with some that say it's a tawdry play bolstered by a fizzing production. It's a tawdry play given a straining and effortful production, garnished with embarrassingly mannered "movement" work by 'Frantic'. - 86.137.90.50)
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