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Tensions: Cathy, played by Cathy Owen and daughter Danielle, Hayley Wareham, who has been roughed up by some schoolgirls. Pictures: Pamela Raith Photography Cathy
Warwick Arts Centre
**** AT THE beginning, the set looked a bit of
a shambles: an almost random scattering of low settees and chairs and
makeshift coverings, and a clumsy array of beech-coloured boxes,
sprawled across the stage. But then this, one remembered, was Cathy’s rented
accommodation. And for Cathy, her surroundings were a shambles, her
marriage a disaster, her finances a mess, her parenting pretty
disastrous, her articulacy wobbly, her temper not her greatest ally. Cathy
is Cardboard Citizens’ fresh take on Ken Loach’s classic mid 1960s BBC
TV film Cathy Come Home,
whose treatment of the theme of homelessness caused a major social stir
as the Wilson era got into its stride. Loach, 80 last year, is still
making films. Some, such as Poor Cow,
Kes
and The Wind That Shakes the Barley,
are – like the director himself - virtually national treasures.
In Ali Taylor’s new play, Cathy’s troubles begin
from the start. She gets a visit from a very pushy, bailiff-like
character who ominously gives her an ultimatum for paying the rent.
Somewhat brutally, he serves her a Section 21 notice – which means if
she fails in a fortnight, she’ll be out on her ear. Not just her, but
her 15 year old daughter, Danielle, who is approaching her GCSEs.
Cathy’s troubles are only just beginning. The set (Lucy Sierra), especially the coffin-like
boxes, are shunted around with enthusiasm – though perhaps all this is
overdone – to make seats or work desks for the gamut of dire relentless
interviews Cathy (Cathy Owen) must go through in pursuit of a new home.
She works – is determined not to depend on benefits – but her income is
petty fragile. We see her jumping through these increasingly impossible
hoops, all with negative consequences or their near-equivalent. Can they
seriously expect her (and the girl) to move to Luton, or West Bromwich
(‘just to the left of Birmingham’), let alone Newcastle? Or to face not
a 3 to 4, but a 6 to 7 years’ wait? Only when you reach number five or
six on the housing list do you have even the chance of a viewing.
We discover in an early scene, where she goes to
visit her quite seriously demented father in his care home, that Alex
Jones – the official from that first encounter – is a deft, versatile
and imaginitive actor. He takes one male role after another – ancient
grandad, posh-spoken ‘senior supervisor’ housing executive, a good half
a dozen in all, each artfully differentiated in not just voice but
movement. One of the best is as Cathy’s estranged occasional plumber
husband, which leads to the discovery that the girl, Danielle, has been
visiting her dad secretly, at least monthly. This ignites one of
Cathy’s biggest blow-ups. She is quick to anger throughout this play
(‘Don’t ever
talk to me about being a mother!’), constantly bridles, yet it is nearly
always justified. Danielle (the splendid Hayley Wareham) has learned to
see it coming, and knows it will also quickly subside, but is not averse
at 15 to calling a spade a spade (‘We’re looking for somewhere that
smells of wee…’). Cathy is not her own greatest helper; yet why, the
play (and film) seem to say, should she take all this lying down? Owen
makes of Cathy a character frustrated, despairing, infuriated,
mistreated, yet impressively unwilling to pity herself. She fights, and
has a gift for coming a cropper, but she carries on and doesn’t give up.
Gutsy, spirited, determined, she is not an optimist, but insists on not
being driven to become a pessimist, either. This is set, not in the 1960s, but more or less
today. Danielle is constantly nursing her mobile phone, the passing
police sirens are today’s. There is talk of Islamic State and terrorism.
This is of course not least to bring home the contemporary reality of
the sorry story – after all, Cathy was filmed in the ‘60s and set in the
‘60s, so why not the equivalent now? One problem is that the drama lacks
the need for any special ‘character’: there is perhaps a lack of
invention forced on director Adrian Jackson. You simply tell it like it
is. The effect at times seemed somewhat pallid.
Staying with friends or relations is virtually a
no-no. But the real ghastliness of it all – apart from it continually
being put to her that she has made herself ‘intentionally homeless’ (how
can she prove she hasn’t?) comes out when she is told, if she is
sleeping rough – Catch 22 - that her daughter can be taken away from
her. Wareham’s Danielle is both the companion and the
witness of all this. She invents a beautifully considered teenager,
occasionally sharp of tongue, just as often consoling or compassionate,
knowing that Cathy’s determination (‘I’ll find somewhere’) is starting
to wear thin. Gradually, and especially when she turns 16, when Wareham
effects a marked change in Danielle’s character, a feeling for
independence surfaces, amid the realisation she may have to carve out
her own life, simply so as ‘to sleep in a bed’. The soundtrack and video play are important to
all this. Not so much the ghetto-blasting, semi-60s noise at the outset,
but the interview material that Cardboard Citizens, which apparently had
its birth in Waterloo’s former cardboard city, have collected (possibly
researcher Alison Cain) from people in similar positions to Cathy’s. The
sound quality of these (Matt Lewis) was always good, as was the
video/digital effects of townscapes etc. displayed on a kind of grim
dated tower block (Edward Japp); and the light fades (Mark Dymock)
between scenes well phased even if the frontal stage lighting was
fractionally bald and bland. So – a spirited enough show in which the passion
of Director Adrian Jackson and his four actors for dealing with this
endlessly important subject (a discussion followed) was manifest. Its
tour, which began in October, ends this week. It may well have done a
lot of informing, and to its credit, a power of good. Roderic Dunnett 06-02-17 |
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