Death of England: Michael

 

Seeing the first of these plays last was not necessarily the best way to go about this, but it still worked.  Another on-the-day ticket, this time up in the first balcony but with an excellent view.

‘Michael' (an excellent Thomas Coombes) appears to be a stereotypical white working class man, no longer young or married. His Dad has just died as England lost the Euros on penalties and he is trying to make sense of that, his life, and also his Dad.  Michael's dad represents a kind of Englishness - East End, Leighton Orient fan, full of nationalist racist rhetoric, tribal, a Brexit fan, but also kind to his son’s Black best friend Delroy and his mum. Keen on ‘tradition’ in both good and bad senses, but also community minded.   As we find over the course of the performance, both Michael and his dad are a lot more than the caricatures would suggest. 

Coombes doesn’t stop for breath throughout the 105 minutes on stage, and it’s a powerful performance, leaping about the performance space, engaging the audience, sharing penguin biscuits, throwing bananas, and playing different characters at lightning speed.  But what he does most powerfully is show us the mix of grief, anger, bravado, fear, guilt, confusion, but also love, all contained in one person.  Another standing ovation too!  

Each of the plays in this trilogy stands strongly on its own (although Delroy is probably my favourite as a standalone), but together they bring together a subtle and thoughtful picture of England today that multiplies the impact.  I have loved finding out about these characters, with each play adding a different dimension to the story and the characters.    I have been thinking about Walt Whitman’s line ‘I contain multitudes’ lately, and that’s certainly true of every character in this trilogy. Powerful stuff, so glad I made the effort to see them all.  

NB: I wrote about the others in the trilogy here for Delroy, and here for Closing Time