Big Ange Floored Me
Glass of wine, the play and Live Theatre programme with sausage and gravy cocktail. It worked!
We needn’t worry about the future because Big Ange has it sorted. This play, about passion, community and trying to thrive, is so powerful it’s like being smacked in the face.
The production begins in a senior school with a bunch of unruly pupils. They are steered by the larger-than-life (and wearer of many hats) Big Ange. And Big doesn’t really cover her. She’s the person you want in your corner – warm, empathetic and fun. A matriarch to guide teenagers in a troubled world. Joann Condon played her well.
Central to the story is the relationship between a brother, Steven, still at home in Blyth and his sister, Caroline, who left the North East for London, returning home with her baby for a visit. Curtis Appleby and Erin Mullen were outstanding as these siblings. They both had tremendous stage presence as fractures erupted in their relationship.
The best plays give the audience a moment to relieve tension and local stand-up legend Gavin Webster was perfect as funny man and wide boy Dirk, who did just this. He was hilarious and commanded the stage with consummate ease.
In the second act, Steven is being groomed by a racist organisation @WeAreThePeopleAndItsArmy. This storyline had the audience so caught up in the drama they were often totally silent, hooked on what was unfolding. The leader of the organisation was played by Lucy Eve Mann and her performance was one of the play’s highlights for me. She was fantastic and created the exact mesmerising, sinister and persuasive presence needed.
Credit must also go to the ensemble of young actors including Ashen Hazel, who played Boy. They were required to dance like demons, exercise like footballers, antagonise like thugs and still look like senior school pupils. Well done to all of them.
The set design by Richard, Rosie and Joe Power was clever and very effective yet simple. There were lockers that served as stage entrances and exits one minute, then projection screens the next. The images played on them created huge impact at key moments and really built tension. I also need to pay credit to the soundtrack of the play. It was a great celebration of pop culture with some football famous tunes thrown in, such as Sweet Caroline.
There was also humorous soccer references, beginning with the title Big Ange a nod to Ange Postecoglou, the former Tottenham Hotspur and Nottingham Forest football manager. One of the funniest scenes was in the school, where everyone burst out of the lockers wearing masks of his face. Lucy Eve Mann then impersonatds him and his Australian accent. It was hilarious.
The play’s writer and director, Jamie Eastlake is a Blyth native who has built up a hugely successful career in London but returned to his roots. He has created a timely play that forces the audience to think long and hard about racism and its breeding ground, while also being hugely entertaining. Jamie is passionate about North East working-class theatre and it was great to see so much local acting talent on the stage, getting their chance to shine.
Side note: I was in Sunderland city centre an hour before the terrible riots started. If I had got the Metro home instead of a lift I would have come face to face with the mob. That riot and its aftermath still make me go cold. Any play that makes us work hard to stop it ever happening again is very welcome indeed.
This show is totally recommended. It is like the North East itself: full of heart and humour with headstrong, powerful women at the centre, doing good work for everyone’s benefit.