Hindle Wakes

Northenden Players chose as their third play in their current season the classic Hindle Wakes, which in 1912 became the first North Country play to be a critical and commercial hit in London’s West End. Hindle Wakes was written in 2 Athol Road, Whalley Range, which was Stanley Houghton’s home for most of his life, which was cruelly cut short at the age of 32 by an attack of meningitis in 1913.

The action unfolds in the fictitious mill town of Hindle in Lancashire. It is an August bank holiday in the Edwardian period as mill hand Christopher Hawthorn (Tim Collier) and his wife (Rosalind Ford) anxiously await the return of their single daughter Fanny (Catherine Dillon) from a weekend in Blackpool with her friends. But - shock horror - it transpires that Fanny has secretly gone on to Llandudno with Alan Jeffcote (Liam Hetherington), the young man about town son of Nathaniel Jeffcote (Bill Platt), owner of Daisy Bank mill and Mr Hawthorn’s boss.

The complication is that Alan is engaged to be married to beautiful Beatrice (Rachel Price), the daughter of Hindle bigwig, Sir Timothy Farrar (Dave Hunt).

The distressed families decide that Alan must do the decent thing and marry Fanny, even though, despite his lapse, he truly loves Beatrice. But in an early example of women’s lib that is just as relevant as today, Fanny turns down Alan’s proposal, dismissing their amorous weekend ‘as just a mere fling’, thereby freeing him to marry the forgiving Beatrice.

Hindle wakes combines pathos with humour to form a play of pulsing vitality. With it’s ‘talking Lancashire’ character, it has always been specially popular with northern audiences and one of the many strengths of this Northenden Players’ production, directed with panache by John Wheatley, was to bringout it’s Lancashire period charm. It was clear that the whole cast loved the play, with the best performances in my judgement coming from Bill Platt, Tim Collier, Liam Hetherington and Catherine Dillon. The sets and costumes (particularly Rachel Price’s) looked great. To sum up; a sumptuous performance of a flawless play, rapturously applauded by the audience.

The players’ next production is to be My Boy Jack, which is the true story of Rudyard Kipling’s only son dramatised by David Haig; Sunday 7^th February 2010 & 9^th – 13^th February. Please phone 445 6868 for more details. Reviewed by David Farwell.