Stage Dragon: They Don’t Pay? We Won’t Pay! – Yvonne Arnaud Theatre

Published on: 18 Oct, 2018
Updated on: 18 Oct, 2018

Lisa Howard as Anthea, Lewis and Suzanne Ahmet as Maggie © Nobby Clark

By Ferenc Hepp

Northern Broadsides and York Theatre Royal bring Dario Fo’s They Don’t Pay? We Won’t Pay! to the Yvonne Arnaud Theatre this week, as a new adaptation by Deborah McAndrew. The original play was written in 1974 and called Can’t Pay? Won’t Pay! And considered Fo’s best-known play after the Accidental Death of an Anarchist.

McAndrew’s adaptation brings the themes right up to the present day, with Brexit being one of the major themes throughout. However, the set is very much in the style of the 1970s or ’80s with its colourful wallpaper, old fashioned house phone and no mobiles to be seen anywhere, so a little confusing.

We are greeted with a sing song on stage featuring the full company upon entering the auditorium before the action starts, but I cannot see how this fits the rest of the show. The plot revolves around the action of two women, Anthea played by Lisa Howard and Maggie played by Suzanne Ahmet, who get caught up in looting a supermarket as a protest against them doubling their prices overnight.

Anthea and Maggie visited by a police officer (Mike Hugo) © Nobby Clark

We then follow how they try to find various cunning and bizarre ways of covering up their crime from their respective partners who work together in a local factory.

The husbands are portrayed by Steve Huison and Matt Connor. All four actors do give a satisfactory performance, however, they are quite “stock” northern characters and occasionally they feel like caricatures. Howard’s style of mainly looking at the audience when she delivers her lines is sometimes off-putting and takes something away from listening to the story and finding the humour.

However, the majority of the laugh-out-loud humour comes from the characters played by Michael Hugo. He was recently seen on the Arnaud stage in Around the World in 80 Days and in this production he plays no less than five characters, including a constable and a sergeant who are only distinguishable from one another by a moustache, and a lady undertaker.

Hugo is certainly a refreshing highlight. Amongst the numerous quick changes, he brings energy and a cheeky humour that is well needed in this production; which does have potential but is currently lost between the genres of comedy, drama, farce and pantomime.

There are a lot of ‘asides’ to the audience, as well as slapstick and physical humour, and I feel that some of the “false corpse” moments do not suit the play’s style. Quite a few lines were also not articulated as they should have been or forgotten, and generally it felt that this was a work in progress rather than a finished article.

The ending is rather dramatic, serious and sudden. McAndrew describes the unique British times and troubles she based this adaptation on as “dreadful and ludicrous”. This production is not dreadful but at times ludicrous. It needs to make up its mind what it wants to be.

They Don’t Pay? We Won’t Pay! runs until Saturday, October 20. Tickets are available via the website: www.yvonne-arnaud.co.uk or by calling the box office on: 01483 440000.