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Work It Out – Home, Manchester

Reviewer: Jay Nuttall

Work It Out – Home, Manchester

Writer: Eve Steele

Director: Sarah Frankcom

Manchester writer and actor Eve Steele has been writing plays in the city and the North West for around 15 years. A veteran of the Manchester’s 24:7 Theatre fringe festival, her writing career has steadily grown in profile. It is testament, therefore, to Eve’s steel that she has been rewarded with a commission from HOME Theatre for their main house – and huge credit to the theatre as well to programme a full-length new play from a Manchester playwright.

Work It Out feels like it belongs in the same fold as the successful 1990s British film era of the northern working class. Like The Fully Monty or Brassed Off the play is a comedy about community. Exercise class leader Alice (Elizabeth Twells) has been given the budget to run a twelve-week course in a community centre. The aim is not to improve the body, rather the mind: the idea that mental wellness is essentially connected with physical exercise. Her group, in the main, have not volunteered to partake. Rather, especially in the case of recovering drug addict Siobhan (Eve Steele), they are required to attend as part of their recovery programme. Enter a room full of socially awkward misfits who are joined by one common factor – a need for help.

Set entirely in the room of a community centre we witness the reluctant strangers become best of friends. It is saccharine and sentimental but in the best way possible. Rab (Aaron McCusker) is a recovering alcoholic who desperately wants to be the alpha male. Shaq (Dominic Coffey) is facing a battle with a desperate and dangerous housing situation as well as his physical ticks. Colette (Eva Scott) craves the endless snacks and biscuits the others constantly bring to class but is symptomatic of a deeper eating disorder. Straight talking battle axe Marie (Eithne Brown) has anxiety because of a need to hoard possessions. She is accompanied on the first few sessions by her deaf granddaughter Rebecca (Raffie Julien) who, not initially signed up as part of the course, becomes an integral member as British Sign Language spreads throughout the participants as freely as friendship.

Steele has written a play about the power of community in a post pandemic world where isolation seemed ubiquitous. It is a story about the power of company and friendship: the real and physical world where the touch of another human is a thousand times more meaningful than a like to a social media post. Work It Out is a hymn to community and the positive effect it has not only on an individual basis but to society. How many social ills could be remedied by a sense of collectivism as opposed to individualism? How many dance exercise classes could bond people together and expel the fear or loneliness that may be lurking under the surface? It is a play that lifts the ordinary and sets it as an example of how society could and should work.

The most pleasing aspect of the show are the performances. Steele juxtaposes comedy and tragedy throughout. The result are characters that we enjoy being in the company of and characters that we care about. That said, the actors unanimously bring an extra layer to the writing. There are some exceptional performances – nuanced as well as comedic. Director Sarah Frankcom has cast perfectly to the point where it feels like the writing may have fitted around the actor rather than vice versa. As the class leader Elizabeth Twells puts the class through the work outs with brilliant comic timing. Dominic Coffey is excellent as the vulnerable and shy Shaq desperate to escape the dangerous shared house he is in and Eithne Brown could have walked off the set of Father Ted with her scalding Irish temperament. Work It Out has a cast that hits every beat whether that be comedy, tragedy or Gloria Gaynor’s I Will Survive.

Steele’s play doesn’t tread new ground thematically or stylistically. However, what it does do it does extremely well. The demons the characters burden seem, dramatically, too well balanced but they are included to explore the various problems in society and gamut of mental illnesses. Steele and team know how to create a laugh out loud moment with a sucker punch in the next. It is a play that works extremely well in the theatre as its essence is the power of the communal experience and how important that still is in 2024.

Runs until 16th March

The Reviews Hub Score

Commanding community comedy

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The North West team is under the editorship of John McRoberts. The Reviews Hub was set up in 2007. Our mission is to provide the most in-depth, nationwide arts coverage online.

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