It may seem a strange item to post in a jazz blog but, as I was born in Jarrow and currently live only a short march away, I feel a degree of poetic licence is acceptable and, just as jazz has always defied convention, so did the title character of this play by Caroline Bird do so in her own way.
Like many biographical essays Red Ellen is a delightfully, yet heartrending, mix of fact, fiction and hearsay that had the audience both laughing and crying. The play centres around the Jarrow MP (1935-1947) Ellen Wilkinson - a feisty, female firebrand in the then man's world of British politics. Fighting Communism, Fascism at home and in Spain as well as warning of the rise of Germany's Nazification leading up to the Second World War and the overall reluctance of Europe to respond. A situation parallelled today by the war in Ukraine. As someone remarked to me during the interval, today wasn't history repeating itself today was history standing still.
Needless to say, the Jarrow March of 1936 played a part albeit not as prominent a part as I'd expected. However, maybe I'm being partisan! Jones was magnificent, portraying Wilkinson with the same evangelical zeal associated with the diminutive MP. The rhetoric, the working class Lancastrian accent and the unswerving dedication to the righteous cause of justice were all personified. Her rumoured love affairs with a communist spy and a labour minister - Herbert Morrison - demonstrated her passionate nature and we cried with her when he, Morrison, dumped her after the war was over and his wife returned from the relatively safe haven of Cornwall. Everyone played their part(s) to perfection, the seamless scene changing did take a while to adjust to but, overall, it worked.
There were a couple of occasions that didn't quite fit with the period. When Ellen and her spy are dancing to the gramophone (complete with horn) the record placed on the turntable was actually a vinyl long player which, in 1936, had yet to be invented and, during one of the weepy scenes, Ellen is offered a tissue. Back then it would have been a handkerchief. Plus I felt that her book The Town That Was Murdered deserved a mention.
Nevertheless, a very well-crafted piece of theatre on at Northern Stage, Newcastle until April 9 then: Nottingham Playhouse (April 13 - 20); Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh (May 4 - 21) and York Theatre Royal (May 24 - 28). Lance.
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