Some things are just meant to be special! Take The Almighty Sometimes for example. It’s an award winning play from an award winning playwright in Kendall Feaver. It boasts a stellar cast that includes Julie Hesmondhalgh and Norah Lopez Holden. It’s produced by those folk at the Royal Exchange, who just cannot seem to put a foot wrong these days. So it’s no surprise then to find that The Almighty Sometimes was a stunning success.
It was inevitable that race would be put under the microscope in Eclipse Theatre Company and Royal Exchange Theatre co-production of Black Men Walking, which started its national tour at the Royal Exchange this week. Written by Testament, it’s a story of Thomas, Matthew and Richard, three black men, who walk the first Saturday of every month. They walk and they talk and inevitably the subject of their skin colour dominates their conversations. Yet, it is more than that, it’s a story of shining a light on Britain’s forgotten black history.
Mancunians know a thing or two about protests. We’re famous for it. The city still remembers the Peterloo Massacre in 1819, where the city’s inhabitants had gathered to campaign for reform. The resulting tragedy, in which 15 people died, was enough to prompt change in the folks that sit in the Houses of Parliament.
“You’ve got to love life to have life, and you’ve got to have life to love life…It’s what they call a vicious circle.” These are the words spoken by the fictional Stage Manager, a character from Our Town, a revival of Thornton Wilder’s classic play which is currently starting its run at the Royal Exchange Theatre. Those words epitomise the spirit of this production. Looking at life in it it’s many shapes and forms through the lens of an American small town set in the early 1900s. The dull drabness of everyday life that is put under the spotlight is illuminated, partly through an engaging way of storytelling and partly through the darkness of death.