Jeffreys' adaptation of Dickens' novel has had many performances across the world since it was first staged in 1982. Compass Theatre have revived it becauseÌý it went down very well with their audiences in the past yet I have to say I found this production somewhat uneven. We are in Coketown, a place every bit as grim as its name. Wakefield was never like this! The opening moments of the play very effectively set the scene for what is to come. Sissy, a child of the circus, is asked by her teacher to describe a horse. She finds it difficult but she is soon put right by another pupil Bitzer who easily summons enough facts to describe such a quadruped. For Dickens, Sissy represents what is good in the world, his hopes for the future.
 | | Coketown and the circus brought to life on stage! |
And then there's the teacher, Thomas Gradgrind. His name has come to sum up a certain type of education, one that relies on facts rather than understanding. Equally heartless is Gradgrind's acquaintance, mill and bank owner Josiah Bounderby. Gradgrind's children have also had the full benefit of his ideas on education. His son Tom becomes a self-interested scoundrel while his daughter Louisa is left feeling a great emptiness. She tells her father: "You turned my mind into a trivial calculating machine and my heart into a wilderness." At the end of the night, after the final curtain call, the sound of Pink Floyd fills the auditorium. For Dickens this sort of education is certainly just Another Brick in the Wall. Caught up in all of this, unwilling to join the newly-formed union and saddled with a no-good wife, is the luckless 'hand', Stephen Blackpool. To Stephen 'All's a muddle!' and perhaps that's how Dickens also sees things. Also popping up from time to time in the play is the world of the circus, the very antithesis of Coketown. This is the place where the heart rather than the head rules, a remnant of the time before industry, with its crippling effects on relationships, has engulfed the country. It's to the production's credit that all these ideas come across quite clearly. It gives us plenty to think about as we leave the theatre. My problem with the production was more to do with its pace which I found somewhat uneven. To some extent this was because at times the play seemed over-wordy. This may well be Dickens' fault. Hard Times is one of the most poetic of his novels - just listen to the way Coketown is painted in words and sound. It must be very tempting toÌý any adapter to keep as many of Dickens' words as possible.Ìý Also a lot of the action was conveyed by narrative or recorded speech and just as the production seemed to find its momentum the interval intervened. While it is reasonable to expect the audience to bring all their powers of concentration to the theatre this is a long play - we didn't get out of the theatre until 10.45pm. There's no doubt the actors are given a lot to do. Four actors play 21 parts and do it very effectively.Ìý It helps that these are more caricatures than characters but that's also part of the problem. I'm not sure I care all that much about their plight! But it still makes for quite an interesting evening at the theatre. Given the success of TV's Bleak House I assumed this would be a popular production. Hopefully more people will get along to the Theatre Royal for the remaining shows but not that many people turned up on Thursday night. This provided quite a contrast to the crowds out clubbing in the surrounding streets. I just wonder what Dickens would have made of that... Chris Verguson | 
