Silky fare

THE question is… would any of John Godber’s characters still work if uprooted from their northern working class settings and therefore prevented from milking every cliché that ‘northern-ness’ has to offer?

There’s no doubt that there’s an almost insatiable appetite for gritty sons of toil facing hard times, muttering “bluddy ‘ell” every two minutes, and often looking as if they’re about to pull a ferret out of their moleskin breeches with one hand while chewing a pickled egg with the other.

This, after all, is basically the running joke that has enjoyed a renaissance with the League of Gentlemen and continues to amuse with such small screen epics as the hit series Benidorm.

That aside, Shobna Gulati and Joe McGann take what would in the hands of lesser souls be little more than working men’s club stuff and transform it into something very special indeed.

Bet and Al are the very personification of a dried-up marriage, a brittle husk of a relationship that’s crying out to be rehydrated.

But the couple’s chance to revive what appears to be more comatose than John Cleese’s parrot comes when Bet wins a weekend in Paris for two.

This naturally provides the opportunity for Godber to mine the rich mother lode that is the ‘stupid, xenophobic Brits abroad’ seam that appears to affect every British holidaymaker except Judith Chalmers.

Yet despite the times when you find yourself mentally suggesting a punchline – and often guessing it correctly – the sheer brilliance and chemistry of Gulati and McGann manage to make silk purses out of any number of sows’ ears.

And this is without doubt a hugely entertaining piece, even if an uncharacteristically eloquent bit of philosophising towards the end of the production by Al on the merits of the European Union says far more about the writer than the character.

Nevertheless, the question remains – could this play stand up without the underlying mockery of regional vowels and implied inherent comedy of the northern accent?

John Phillpott