Review: Days of Significance at Northern Stage

Oct 24 2009 The Journal

BOOZE Britain and the Iraq war are tackled in this Much Ado-inspired Royal Shakespeare Company production of Roy Williams’ hard-hitting play Days of Significance.

Three intense acts follow a group of twenty-somethings from an unnamed Southern town (somewhere on the Thames estuary, judging by the profuse Cockney rhyming slang) and charts the effect of the war on them as two of their number, Ben (Toby Wharton) and Jamie (George Rainsford), leave for active service in Basra.

They leave behind foul-mouthed girlfriends Hannah (Joanna Horton) and Trish (Sarah Ridgeway), though Hannah’s aspirations of university mark her out among the booze-fuelled rampaging.

Ben and Jamie embrace the idea of being “propers”, though it is tragically illustrated that they cannot begin to comprehend the reasons for war. Jamie’s remark that Saddam’s moustache is justification for the conflict provides no comedic effect.

As the play progresses, predictable themes about the soldier mindset and the horrors and fallout of war begin to emerge. Ben’s video diary to Trish illustrates that, though no less dignified, war in the nightclubs at home is less damaging physically and mentally than real combat.

The play is no doubt engrossing – you cannot tear your eyes away – though it offers little respite from a depressing portrait of the streets of Britain and Basra.

Its incessantly quirky and profane dialogue is also somewhat exhausting. The base values of the protagonists, though not particularly their fault, provides them with few redeeming features and gives the audience little chance to empathise with their experience of war, or life.

Days of Significance at Northern Stage, Newcastle, until tonight