The four postwar northern characters created by dramatist Peter Flannery have spanned more than a full day of drama across multiple formats since their 1982 Royal Shakespeare Company world premiere. That original production featured nearly four hours in the lives of lawyer-councillor Mary, drifting philanderer Tosker, photo-journalist Nicky, and petty criminal Geordie. Subsequent adaptations included the award-winning 1996 BBC Two version and a 2022 Radio 4 presentation, each running 10 hours. Now, Flannery brings the quartet to the Theatre Royal in Newcastle for a fresh stage production. The TV version took them to 1995 (brink of Blair) and the radio one to 2020 (Boris Johnson and Covid), exploiting the way that saga dramas test characters against landmark events.
While earlier iterations traced decades of history from Labour Prime Minister Harold Wilson’s 1964 promise of a new Britain up to the brink of the Blair era or the COVID-19 pandemic, this new play narrows its focus. Flannery has tracked back to the 1979-85 window, specifically adapting the sixth and seventh television episodes that cover Margaret Thatcher entering office and the miners’ strike. But Flannery has tracked back to 1979-85, adapting the sixth (Thatcher in) and seventh (miners out, it would be intriguing to know if the idealism of these now triple-locked pensioner characters burns again under Burnham. This is a must-see but, paradoxically, it feels incomplete, for completists.
The production features Trevor Fox acting as a chorus figure who guides the audience through historical context while also playing Nicky’s dementia-affected father, Felix. This subplot adds personal resonance to a narrative that balances domestic tension with sweeping political history. The romantic relationship between Mary, played by Sam Neale, and Nicky, played by Ryan Nolan, highlights the personal sacrifices of social campaigners seeking romantic stability. Like the Chorus in Henry V, galvanising our imaginations and dropping historical footnotes, a piece begun when he was an RSC writer in residence always had Shakespearean ambitions and these continue with the tremendous Trevor Fox. All forms of the story have used soap opera domestic tension to offset socialist history and here the epic courtship of Sam Neale’s Mary and Ryan Nolan’s Nicky affectingly shows campaigners for social change yearning for romantic conformity.
Meanwhile, the bleak trajectories of Tosker and Geordie are portrayed by Jack Robertson and Scott Turnbull, respectively. Jude Nelson makes a notable impact in a smaller role as a Tory MP who achieves an early breach in Labour’s red wall. The script’s political backdrop reflects the Kinnockian perspective, which places blame on Labour’s Militant tendency and union leader Arthur Scargill for expanding the rightwing electorate that sustained 18 years of Conservative governance.
Director Jack McNamara’s staging occasionally leans toward stylized action sequences during clashes between pickets and riot squads. For devoted fans, the production is essential viewing, yet it ultimately leaves a sense of incompleteness due to the heavy compression of a sprawling saga. As Fox’s chorus character laments, there is always much more to say, highlighting the challenges of adapting such an epic narrative for regional theatre. The different Our Friends in the North directors have tended to panic at its politically expository dialogue and in this case it sometimes feels as if director Jack McNamara is searching for action such as slow-motion strobing for clashes between colliery pickets and riot squads.
