Goodnight Mister Tom by Encore Productions 31/05/2017

About three months ago, my grandma sent me a text message (all in capital letters because she is yet to discover that each message doesn’t need to be, which gives the distinct impression that she’s yelling at you) asking me to pop over. Over a cup of tea, she asked me to sort out the invitations to her upcoming eightieth birthday party, which of course I agreed to do. It was at this point that she made it clear she didn’t want any presents: “I’ve already got everything I want and need”. Instead, she asked people to make donations to the National Autistic Society.

Although I heard this – and subsequently created her invitations online – I also knew deep down that I would still buy her tickets to a play. In the last couple of years, my grandma and her partner of twenty-seven years, Frank, have become increasingly difficult to buy for. There’s only so many Christmases and birthdays you can buy an elderly couple bottles of Radox, novelty socks and a bunch of flowers.

It was about eighteen months ago that my mum suggested instead of buying them useless crap that they don’t want or need, we would take them to see a play. Me and my mum go to the theatre as often as we can (I’ve just asked her to work out how many productions we’ve been to in the last twelve months alone and there’s been twenty-one between us), but my grandparents don’t drive which immediately limits the amount of plays or shows they can see. So far, we’ve seen “Paddy” at the Parr Hall, “Foster and Allen” at the Parr Hall, “The Dubliners” at the Parr Hall and “Once a Catholic” at the Brindley in Runcorn.

My grandma is in a wheelchair and as she has COPD, she relies on an oxygen tank to breathe at all times, so we’ve had some tricky experiences in getting her in and out of theatres safely. We actually had quite a bad experience at the Brindley, which slightly dampened our evening watching “Once a Catholic” (although it was still fantastic), where there were no available disabled seats. We had been advised that the venue can only offer eight disabled seats but she would be able to be wheeled in to sit in a normal seat before the wheelchair was taken outside to be left in a corridor.

When we arrived at the Brindley, we were told that this wasn’t true and wheelchairs weren’t allowed inside unless the wheelchair user had a designated disabled seat. This meant my grandmother, who cannot walk unaided, had to be carried to and from her seat, which she found rather upsetting.

Last night, on 31^st May 2017, we went to see “Goodnight Mister Tom” at the Pyramid in Warrington. The performance was from local theatre company, Encore Productions, with chairman, Nick Cupit, overseeing the company and the production directed by Kit Phillips. Tickets cost £12 for adults and £10 for concessions, so for four of us, it cost £44 – not too bad at all, I thought. Doors opened at 7pm and the play started half an hour later. Following our “Once a Catholic” experience, we’d booked the tickets by going into the Pyramid a few months back and explaining that we needed a disabled access seat and three accompanying seats.

The staff at the Pyramid could not be faulted, so once we arrived (and found a disabled parking space immediately adjacent to the venue, which was really handy for wheeling my grandma in and out), we let a member of staff know we’d arrived and she advised us that our seats were on the second row with reserved signs on each seat. It was possibly the smoothest transition we’ve ever had in a venue, as we sat down quite comfortably after buying two programmes (£2 each) and a few raffle tickets, which my grandma went on to win!

It’s worth pointing out here that Goodnight Mister Tom is one of my all-time favourite books. I read it in primary school, then we studied it in Year Seven for an exam and my English teacher was at a loss for what to do with me, as the class were tripping up on some of the local folk’s way of speaking whereas I could quote passages from the book by heart. I like Michelle Magorian’s way of describing everything so vividly. I remember reading an interview with her years ago and she said Goodnight Mister Tom was produced after exploring the colours of the rainbow following a writing class. She wrote one story for each colour and Goodnight Mister Tom was the product of the colour green.

I won’t go into huge amounts of detail about the storyline itself in case anyone reads this who is going to see the production and doesn’t want any spoilers but if you aren’t familiar with it, I’ll just give a quick rundown. The story takes place at the start of the Second World War, when children from inner city areas were evacuated to safer places, such as the countryside. They were taken without parents to live with kind hearted strangers, often for months and even years at a time, despite some children being very young. The Goodnight Mister Tom story centres around one particular evacuee, William Beech, and the elderly man who took him in, Tom Oakley, and the unlikely bond formed between them.

As with any production featuring child actors, there were a number of children alternating the role of each character. Last night was the opening night for this particular performance and the child actors involved were Jack Radcliffe, Finlay Scott, Erin Eaves, Daniel Wilson, Poppy Williams and Callum Eaves.

In all honesty, I wasn’t sure what to expect. Would it be a musical, where the local folk sang about “letting the townies stay” and would William express his frustration with being unable to read and write through contemporary dance? Well, no. It wasn’t a musical, although there were some terrific wartime songs played to fill the silences between scene changes, which my grandparents in particular really enjoyed.

As with any production involving children, I’m always a little dubious in case there are any problems. I’ve just been to see Billy Elliot at the Liverpool Empire and the children in that were phenomenal so the children from Encore Productions had a lot to live up to.

Ironically, there was a scene where the character Zach danced but it was in context and very funny. Finlay Scott, playing Zach, had an insurmountable energy throughout the performance as he played a very upbeat version of Zach, not unlike the version in the film adaptation. He was continually funny and without a doubt the comic relief of the play. (Poor Finlay had to wear a thick woolly jumper throughout the performance and I dread to think how hot he must’ve been under the stage lights but he battled through like a pro.)

Jack Radcliffe played the lost and lonely William and he portrayed an admirable performance. In fact, and I wouldn’t say this if I didn’t mean it, I think he gave the original William, Nick Robinson, from the film a run for his money. Jack was cute in a “I’ve been uprooted from my home and dumped in a place I can’t even pronounce the name of” sort of way but not too cute that the story couldn’t organically progress as the audience fell in love his with innocence and enjoyed watching him make friends for the first time in his life.

The programme was slightly disappointing in the sense that there was no information about the actors themselves – where they’re from, other productions they’ve been in etc – although I suspect that may have been because of safeguarding issues, which is completely understandable, but I would’ve been interested to know how old Jack is. I’d hedge my bets at saying he’s about eight or nine years old. In the car on the way home, all four of us were saying how blown away we were by his ability to learn, remember and deliver all of his lines without faltering once – and I’ve seen many a professional adult actor forget their lines on stage.

Although a non-speaking role, I cannot write a review on last night’s performance without talking about the wonderful Ewan Schooler, who orchestrated the puppet of Sammy the dog. Ewan was in virtually every scene (and the scenes where Sammy wasn’t present, Ewan doubled up as a school child or multi rolled as a civilian) and, similarly to Timone in the stage version of the Lion King, Ewan controlled the puppet whilst being on stage at all times himself. The extraordinary young performer was bent double for ninety percent of the production (I hope his back isn’t too sore today) and after a while, I almost forgot he was there because Sammy was so convincing, life like and endearing.

As we applauded the cast at the end of the performance, Ewan got a particularly loud and enthusiastic cheer – someone even whistled – and it couldn’t have been more well deserved. I said to my mum that it takes a special child to accept a non-speaking role in a production where his friends are all line learning, yet he was pivotal to the play. I don’t think we would’ve loved the growing bond between Tom and William without the faithful Sammy. Also, I’ve just scanned my eyes over the programme again, and I can see that Ewan doesn’t share his role with any other actor. Ewan, if you’re reading this, bravo.

In fact, all the children were experts at delivering lines and moving about on stage. Unlike some performances featuring children, their roles hadn’t been “watered down” so to speak, in order for the roles to be easier to grasp or perform. I can’t begin to imagine how overwhelming it must’ve felt for them to be learning lines, blocking scenes and following direction presumably after school and at weekends, in between revising for their SATs and doing their homework. Kudos to Kit Phillips for his exceptional directional skills. It’s no easy task directing children (and I worked in a children’s theatre company for twelve months, so I know it can be hard) but I was very impressed by how polished the performance was.

Moving on to the adults: Bryan Higgins was Mister Tom. He actually was him. Don’t get me wrong, I loved the late great John Thaw and thought his performance in the film was wonderful but – and this is a bold claim – I thought Bryan may have been better. He was just so likeable and his accent was spot on. He had a nice way with the children and he was funny in parts that I didn’t expect. Again, I won’t spoil the plot, but at the end of the play when there was a particularly happy moment between Tom and William, I had a lump in my throat and my eyes started to burn.

The other adult actors – Dawn Lloyd, Kayleigh Finch, Hayley Northey, Jane Newey, Jimmy Dean, Danni Steel, Rose Higgins and Chele Dean – were all great too but I particularly enjoyed Jane Newey’s performance as local busybody and mother to the five thousand Mrs Fletcher and Dawn Lloyd’s chilling performance of William’s mentally ill mother, Mrs Beech.

As for the production, parts of the storyline were particularly challenging and prior to the show, I was genuinely wondering whether they would skirt over some of the more upsetting scenes. No. I needn’t have worried. Just like Encore didn’t shy away from having a dog as one of the main characters, they didn’t shy away from embracing the difficulties faced during a war. Encore tackled the topics of mental health, abuse and death tactfully and I was very, very impressed.

Any downsides? The only things I can think of are very small but I’m always very honest when reviewing any episode, production or film.

Firstly, the venue itself was uncomfortably warm. I know, I know, how ridiculous of me to moan about the heat in May/June but at times it was stifling. I had an immediate flashback to June last year when a group of us went to see the Comedy Store in the same venue and it was so uncomfortably hot that people actually left halfway through. Once the Pyramid staff opened the doors, a gust of fresh air blew in and it was wonderful but there was obviously an exercise class in the studio opposite and the music and shouting was a little off putting.

Secondly, during a huge scene between William and Mrs Beech, I should have been glued to the actors but I was so distracted by the pitter patter of Mrs Beech’s high heels on the stage floor. If I was to give any advice, it would be for Dawn Lloyd to wear flats for these scenes as if Jack Radcliffe didn’t have a microphone, we may have struggled to hear him – and I was on the second row.

Finally, there were only two toilets in the entire venue which meant that there were long, long queues during the interval and, as with any overused public toilet, they weren’t in the best of condition.

But all in all, I would say these three small points were overshadowed by the success of the play.

To all at Encore Productions – bravo. After the atrocities in Manchester last week, I think we all needed a bit of light entertainment which made us all realise that in times of darkness, pulling together is crucial. I thoroughly enjoyed myself last night, as did everyone else in the audience. Break a leg for your remaining two sell out performances.