FOUR STARS

From an adaptation of a book that has so much, you can’t expect to have everything. So it is with Stephen Lowe’s acclaimed stage version of Robert Tressell’s classic of Edwardian working-class life, The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists. Or, at least, with the two-handed variation on it from actor Neil Gore now being toured by Townsend Productions. Watching the polished production with huge enjoyment last week at Banbury’s Mill Arts Centre, I was conscious principally of the absence of the domestic dimension that helps make the novel so compelling. Through depictions of privation near-Zolaesque in their intensity, the reader comes to appreciate the imperative need for the men we are shown to earn what is very properly called a living wage. But here, with no women in the cast (and director Louise Townsend presumably unwilling to give us Monty Python-style blokes in frocks), the focus remains on the group of exploited workers we follow as they set about redecorating the sprawling home of the odious Mayor Sweater. All are portrayed, with much changing of hats and jackets, by the versatile Mr Gore and Richard Stone.

This is Mugsborough (a thinly disguised Hastings) and they are the mugs — at least in the eyes of the book’s main character, the socialist Frank Owen (Mr Stone). His injunctions to his comrades to stand up for themselves against their grasping bosses supply much to entertain and instruct.

Most famously, of course, he provides a graphic illustration of the Great Money Trick. “Money is the cause of poverty” says Owen, “because it is the device by which those who are too lazy to work are enabled to rob the workers of the fruits of their labour.” He proceeds to prove the point, using slices of bread, knives and halfpennies, in a demonstration for which two audience members are press-ganged into the decorating team. The reward for each is a copy of Tressell’s book.

Reading it, they will perhaps recognise that the show they have seen also dispenses very largely with the novel’s blistering assault on religion (for me, only Gibbon’s Decline and Fall does it better). But, as I said, you can’t have everything.

What we do get is much laughter, some very jolly music and a hoot of a hooley as we follow the men on their booze-drenched ‘beano’. Clearly, there were wages enough for that . . .

The play is being performed as the one pay-for event in the otherwise free all-day arts festival at Ruskin College on Saturday. Celebrating local performers, there is a dynamic programme of music, dance, theatre, singing and poetry. Running from 10am, with different sessions in different locations happening all day, the festival is a showcase for professional and emerging talent.

Ruskin is hosting the event at its Dunstan Road campus. It is supported by SOHA, a local housing association that places residents and community projects at the heart of its business.

Highlights include The Homeless Oratorio by musicians from the Crisis Skylight Centre, and Anjali Dance Company, a professional troupe for people with learning disability. There will be ten-minute plays in the morning from the students of the Writing for Performance Foundation degree and Robin Bennett, founding member of The Dreaming Spires, will be doing a solo set in the cafe at 3pm.

 

The Mill Arts Centre, Banbury
At Ruskin College on Saturday at 8pm
Tickets: Stephen Bell on 07789915221/01296 565567 or ruskincollegertp.eventbrite.co.uk