This centenary touring revival of Harold Brighouse’s play is full of life, humour and characters you can’t help but like. Set uuup north in 1880s Salford in a boot makers it was actually written a few decades later amidst the social upheaval of WWI and women’s suffrage, a commentary of the time with a boot full of class aspirations, family expectation and gender inequality that still chimes today.
Cast very much against his usual type, Martin Shaw (Judge John Deed) takes on the role of bootmaker Henry Hobson - proud Salford shopkeeper and widowed father of three eligible Lancs lasses. Change is in the leather filled air of Hobson’s boot shop and the blustering red nosed head of the house is struggling with the modern world and increasingly ‘uppish’ behaviour from his brood of unpaid young assistants. What with their unhealthy interest in modern fashions, outrageous desires to choose their own husbands or get paid properly for once. It’s enough to turn him to yet another ‘business meeting’ in the Moonrakers while he mull marriages to 'set 'em straight'.
His two pretty younger daughters Vickey (Gabrielle Dempsey) and Alice (Florence Hall) already have some handsome young professionals courted for husband material, but the gruff old git is too tight to cough up for a dowry. Sly Henry is also reluctant to part with his unwaged eldest Maggie (Naomi Fredrick), whose plain but impressive headmistress persona keeps the business afloat, and whom he mocks as a spinster 'a bit on the ripe side'.
However, Maggie has other ideas for her future, with her eye on honest but barely literate working class bootmaker Willie Mossop, who may be a bit daft but 'by 'eck he can mek fine boots’ when it comes to posh ladies footwear. She’ll see her duffer of a Dad proved wrong that she’s an ‘old maid’ past it at 30 if it’s the last thing she does.
Cue a cunning scheme to get out, get married and get financially independent. Not just for Maggie but all three sisters. A tall order? If anyone can do it it’ll be the bossy, brash and brilliant Maggie to manoeuvre her sozzled father to make the right choice. Which brings us to the English phrase ‘Hobsons Choice’ and show turning point, which dates back to a 17th century Cambridge horse dealer called Thomas Hobson famed for only allowing customers to choose the horse nearest the door. Which horse will our Maggie have lined up for Dad Henry?
Martin Shaw has excellent comic timing and does a surprisingly good Lancashire accent as the increasingly boozey shop keeper, but the real show stealer was Naomi Frederick playing no-nonsense Maggie. For a slight lady her tightly pinned presence and steely force of will remain just on the amusing side of scary. It was wonderful to see her ‘courting’ and moulding the quivering yet brilliantly deadpan Willie (Bryan Dick) and seeing the genuine warmth that develops as she teaches him to read and develop his potential.
The rest of the well costumed cast, including a cameo from Christopher Timothy (of James Herriot fame) as Hobson’s friend Jim, fit in perfectly as they move seamlessly from scene to scene in set designer Simon Higlett’s lovingly detailed revolving shop.
As my own Dad from Manchester would say, ‘It’s dead good this’. The fast paced storyline keeps the audience 'avin a proper laugh' from the off while we gleefully watch our ladies haul themselves up by their bootstraps from domestic servitude to a fairer deal.
Hobson's Choice plays at Nottingham's Theatre Royal until Saturday 26 March 2016.
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