Theatre Group’s New Labour Review

Driven by an excellently casted ensemble, Theatre Group’s production of New Labour, under the direction of India Martin, has provided an emotionally engaging adaptation of Marcelo Dos Santos’ original script. The play appropriately taps into themes of being in control of one’s destiny and the changing realities of life that impact our hopes and aspirations. 

Set entirely within a call centre, New Labour primarily follows Jemima Woodard’s Alice along with the ensemble cast of characters of her colleagues, friends and love interests. These characters enter and leave Alice’s life in differing and occasionally tragic ways, each having their own goals and aspirations that are shaped and changed throughout the play. Each actor’s performance was distinct and appropriate. This allowed the audience to understand and relate to the characters’ motivations formed during the play’s first act, before the heavy impact of the more plot-heavy second act’s events. 

The choice to have the sold-out audience sat around the office set rather than in front of a stage, as in a traditional theatre performance, was an interesting and effective one. This created an intimate setting for both the audience and the cast and enhanced the chaotic energy within scenes such as the Christmas party scene which featured almost the entire cast. This was aided by good chemistry between the cast as a whole, who bounce off of each other with little trepidation. 

Although a smaller role in the grand scheme of the play, the character of Roisin, a television producer portrayed by Emily Sharples, provided a contrasting outsider who had to traverse the anxieties and drama of the call centre. Sharples’ natural portrayal helped to enhance other high quality performances by Abi Norris, who played the young and timid, through aspirational Collete, and Emily Raven-Baker who adeptly portrayed Sally, the office boss anxious about her underperforming workforce as well her own lost time and career choices.

While not a laugh out loud comedy, the dark humour of the script provides enough to keep the audience engaged and not allow bleaker aspects of the play to become overbearing. Praise must be given to the cast for their ability to quickly and naturally shift between the more relaxed and comedic aspects of the scripts to the emotional and dramatic. Notable scenes included a one-to-one scene between Phoebe Graham’s Liz and Josh Murphy’s Rob. Both these characters provide much of the humour in the play but when called on to provide a dramatic, emotional, and intimate scene both actors excelled. 

Omar El Fassi’s portrayal of Brian, a focused office manager on the autism spectrum, is another performance which deserves praise. As someone with a brother who has autism, I appreciated the portrayal of Brian as it remained humorous without leaning too far and becoming mean-spirited or mocking. This was achieved through both a good script and El Fassi’s portrayal, which created a likeable character that played a substantial role within the play.

As a whole, the Theatre Group’s performance of New Labour was an engaging one. Though the second act felt stronger than the first, the first act was necessary for the vital character development that provided New Labour’s emotional core. The play’s ending did feel somewhat abrupt, but fit in with the themes of letting go of certain dreams and adapting to the rapid changes of our goals throughout our lives. It felt like there was more to tell with these characters, though this reflects more on the high quality of the performances and a desire for further closure on each character’s eventual fate. The closing line about letting go by Eve Billington’s Lia, whose character developed organically from a free-spirited individual to a serious and driven office worker, provided a satisfying close in the context of the rest of the play. 

Theatre Group’s production of New Labour can only be described as successful. When adapting a prewritten script the most crucial things are casting and direction, both of which were commendable here. With there only being four weeks between casting and the final performance, this is a particularly impressive achievement by Theatre Group.

(Image Credit: Joe Fenna)