Our Public House – Tanya Moseiwitsch Playhouse, Sheffield

Writer: Barney Norris

Music: Jonathan Walton

Lyrics: Jonathan Walton and people across the country

Director: Josephine Burton

It’s clearly The Week of the Pub at Sheffield Theatres as a second production opens set in a pub. You can be serenaded by the Choir of Man at The Jungle in the Lyceum whilst across the square in the Tanya Moiseiwitsch Playhouse you can make your voice heard at The Albion.

We first meet Mary, a standing Labour MP candidate, in a local by-election in a community where the vast majority of constituency spoiled their ballot papers. Despite her assistant Tom’s efforts, Mary is determined to be different. She is determined to listen to the real struggles of the people. Cut to The Albion, a local pub struggling to make ends meet. Following the election in which a majority spoiled their ballot papers, landlady Sanjana started running speech making classes in the pub, encouraging her regulars to make their voices heard.

This new play from Barney Norris is really well written. Norris has created a diverse group of flawed characters and it’s interesting to see how they still manage to do life with each other. However, where The Choir of Man next door focuses entirely on togetherness, Our Public House seems to be a little too focused on divisions in communities. Much of the play feels like it’s people arguing – well written and well performed arguments, but nonetheless a little more joy wouldn’t have gone amiss.

What lets the show down is its songs. Whilst Jonathan Walton’s music is fine and in keeping with the characters, his lyrics leave something to be desire. The dialogue feels so natural and the lyrics don’t – the songs feel like they pause the story rather than continue or deepen it. In theory, making the speeches musical numbers seems like a good idea but it doesn’t quite work.

The set from Good Teeth Design is outstanding. It fills every inch of the intimate space, fully immersing into the pub. The only downside is there is minimal flexibility to depict other locations for the couple of scenes that take place elsewhere. Ryan Joseph Stafford’s lighting works to show these locations to an extent. Throughout the piece, he manages to have enough shifts in lighting to build moments of tension or emotion, whilst never being distracting.

Director Josephine Burton keeps the piece moving, using the space very well. We get a good mix of high energy scenes and more reflective or emotional scenes. Burton also performed the role of Scott in the absence of Fergus O’Donnell. Her commitment to the performance meant we just bought into it, overlooking the fact that she’s very much not a middle aged man. She performed the role with conviction and heart and, even if most of the audience didn’t agree with Scott’s politics, we managed to still see the good in him.

Bharti Patel leads the cast as landlady Sanjana wonderfully. She is full of warmth, acting as a mother to so many in her community. Patel blends the warmth with her heartbreak (as Sanjana is grieving her husband) beautifully. Chaya Gupta is incredibly believable as her daughter Anika. The fraught relationship between Sanjana and Anika is moving yet authentically portrayed, showing how people choose to grieve in different ways and that neither more right than another. The romantic relationship between Gupta’s Anika and Kit Esuruoso’s Tom is less believable. It feels like it comes a little out of nowhere. Esuruoso is excellent on the whole though. His characterisation of the Brighton-based political aide contrasts to those living in the Northern working class community perfectly. Gabriella Leon is a delight as the bright-eyed (possibly too bright-eyed?) future MP Mary. She is full of hope, dreaming of being different and serving her new community as well as she possibly can. She develops a lovely rapport with Lauren Moakes as Jo, one of the only people she can communicate with in the community in British Sign Language. Moakes gives a heartbreaking performance – we see that she’s trying to turn her life around, but the support systems she needs from the council or government just aren’t there.

The cast is completed by a number of members of Sheffield People’s Theatre, including Pip and Julie who deliver speeches in the second act. Both deliver their speeches with immense passion – they’re clearly speaking from the heart and this is incredibly moving.

Our Public House is packed full of heart and it doesn’t pack its punches when delivering important political messaging. It just needs a little more variety in its tones, and the songs don’t add to the storytelling what they could do.

Runs until 20th June 2026, before continuing on tour