A loving paean to the Eighties comes complete with snow-washed denim. By Rosie Millard
Market Boy
Olivier Theatre, London SE1
All right: 20 years on, it's time to iconise the Eighties. And for all those fortysomething former New Romantics out there, what a joy it is to hear the nostalgic anthems of the decade pumping out in the National's mighty Olivier theatre. They just don't write 'em like that any more. Imagination's "Body Talk"; Spandau Ballet's "True"; yeah, even the mysteriously alluring vocals of Rick Astley are held up for our adoration in David Eldridge's Market Boy.
From snow-washed denim to giant mobile phones and those hideous sweatshirts adorned with Disney characters (how did we ever?), Eldridge and his design team have clearly had a huge laugh remembering and lovingly recreating the Thatcher years. Overall, the night delivers an experience somewhat akin to stepping into Andrew Ridgeley's wardrobe, and if this analogy is meaningless to you then Market Boy, with its shell suits, lacy tights and baroque referencing to Zammo's downfall in Grange Hill, is probably not for you.
If, however, you used to dress as a King of the Wild Frontier, then you'll enjoy it. But don't arrive late, because the night begins quite brilliantly. Eldridge and the director, Rufus Norris, depict the explosive advent of Thatcher's Britain with a white van driving through the famous Saatchi & Saatchi "Labour isn't working" poster to the soundtrack of Frankie Goes to Hollywood's most famous single. Relax? The audience is so happy it almost removes its collective shoes and puts its feet up on the seat in front.
Danny Worters is the eponymous Boy, tutored in life by the traders of Romford Market. Worters (whose open, laughing face is deeply reminiscent of Richard Beckinsale) has ample charisma. But although presented with a variety of interesting problems, including chancing upon his mother when she is shagging his boss in the back of a van, his voice rarely deviates from its querulous tone, with a Valley-Girl uplift at each statement's end that, if I may be very pedantic, is actually rather Nineties in provenance.
It's probably not his fault; the whole play suffers from the same malaise of monotone. Eldridge uses the hawkers and traders of Romford Market as a microcosm of the Thatcher years. It's a brilliant concept, with bags of enthusiasm and verve, but it's too busy grooving around to the Pet Shop Boys to develop into a proper play. There are loads of ideas, but precious little plot, and almost no solid characterisation. The damaged Falklands vet, the single mum, the old lady, the cheeky chappies, the yuppie and the hapless politician are all present and correct, but each is wheeled on and off as if Eldridge is ticking them on a checklist. It's a bit like watching a shadow of a Mike Leigh film - without Leigh's emotional punch or moral curiosity.
Thatcher is here, of course, creepily impersonated by Nicola Blackwell, with a brilliantly husky voice, a mask for a face and, at one point, a blue corset with Conservative rosettes on the nipples. Indeed, the night is a good laugh, and wot's wrong with that (as one of the characters might well say)? Jonathan Cullen's Meat Man standing on his refrigerated van, leading the entire company into a paean for good old Blighty while Thatcher descends from the clouds above as a sort of blue-suited harpy, is a theatrical triumph. So, too, is the hilarious Christmas number in which Wham's "Last Christmas" segues into "Walking in the Air", with Maggie taking the Aled Jones role. At nearly three hours long, however, sack-loads of cockney rhyming slang, market backchat, vulgarities and a parade of recognisable stereotypes from the entire catalogue of the bleedin' obvious cannot save the play from the sense that here is a perfect seven-inch single which has been stretched into a 12-inch. Ridgeley's wardrobe may well be stacked full of fabulous Eighties clothes, but it is also wooden, and ever so slightly shallow.
Booking details available from www.nationaltheatre.org.uk
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