LIVE REVIEW – A family saga that races through six decades of life in Sheffield | stage

THere are some of the things they like to do at pantomime when an audience member seems to be arriving late. To get them going, there’s a high-speed replay of the first ten minutes. Leo Butler’s family saga creates something of the same effect—except that instead of bringing us up to speed in some scenes, it races boldly and comprehensively through the past six decades.

We get 1969 and Neil Armstrong; 1971 and the decimal system; 1974 and Wombles; 1979 and Margaret Thatcher. 1984 and Orgreave – all the way to 2020 and Covid, followed by Barbie and Ukraine.

Through the lens of a Sheffield family in a council house in Burngreave, a historic home to miners, steelworkers and migrants, the play revolves around Vietnam, the Winter of Discontent, the Falklands War, the stock market crash, Northern Rock and 9/11, with local nods to Cabaret Voltaire, Nick Clegg and Arctic Monkey.

In its attempt to capture the shifting sands of modern history, the film carries the ambition, if not the political scope, of Our Friends to the North and its three-hour running time. We see the arrival of VHS recorders, CDs and iPod Minis.

The play is at its best when it features characters shaped by circumstance: freedom dropout Brian (Kenny Doughty) who goes from hit-and-run agitator to Maddie Thatcher, or his daughter Rebecca (Abby Vicky Russell), who grows from acid party goer to war zone activist. It is weaker when the issue of children, illness and old age pushes us towards soap opera emotions.

With an eye toward her political purpose, Butler has sharp observations on everything from feminism to “violence.” When that’s out of sight, especially in an endless closing sequence, it seems formless.

Directed by Abigail Graham firmly on Sarah Peyton’s set of amorphous wood panels, Peyton’s costumes keep pace with changing fashions. He acted tremendously. Joining Doughty and Vicky-Russell at the heart of the story are Liz White as mother Kathy and Samuel Creasy as son Mike, all of whom are excellent at charting the transitions from hopeful youth to damaged maturity. They are precise, sensitive and tireless in a play that functions better as a mirror of our experience than analysis.