On entering the theatre, the audience is blinded by silver in Grace Smart's design, with a silver disc for a stage surrounded by small mirrors and with an elaborate silver tinsel 'chandelier' overhead circled by silver speakers—even the coats of the journalists in the opening number are sprayed silver. This sets up the opulence of the production and the character of a person who famously, when her husband won £152,319 on the pools in 1961 (the equivalent now to around £4.3M), that she was going to "spend, spend, spend".
But that doesn't happen until just before the interval; the story of Viv Nicholson (Rachel Leskovac, who played Young Viv in the West End transfer of the original Leeds Playhouse production in 1999) is framed by her in 1995 working in a beauty salon being asked by a rather snooty customer (Rebecca Thornhill) how she came to lose such a fortune, before flashing back to her as a teenager (Rose Galbraith in a vivacious, tour-de-force performance) working as an ice cream girl in the cinema, where all the lads are watching her more than the film. One of them walks her home, but her father George (Joe Alessi, who also plays Bruce Forsyth awarding them their cheque), staggering out of the pub with all the other "Yorkshire men", is extremely possessive to the point of violence towards her or anyone with designs on her.
Of course she rebels and ends up in bed with Matt (George Crawford), in a magical transformation scene, but just as she decides he isn't for her, she falls pregnant and marries him. Still 17, married and with a baby, she falls for the boy next door, Keith (Alex James-Hatton), who becomes her second husband and the love of her life.
However, they find life tough and money short in the mining town of Castleford—there's a beautifully staged scene that simultaneously shows the miners working in the pit at the same time as their wives are carrying out their domestic chores at home—until, when down to their last £2 with the rent due and bills turning red, Keith gets eight score draws on the football pools. This is another inspired piece of staging, as each result is announced by two of the ensemble in football kit miming playing through the house. Young Viv ends the first act riding on a giant bottle of champagne flying over the silver stage.
But while the folks of Castleford will drink the beer their newly rich neighbours buy them, they mutter about them behind their backs, so Viv decides that they are "Castleford folk no more", and they move to middle-class Garforth, where they also don't fit in. A trip to the USA is spent mostly drunk, and on their return, Keith crashes his Jaguar and Viv is left to sing, heartbreakingly, "Who's gonna love me now?" To make matters worse, it takes a few years of court proceedings to get her hands on the remaining £34,000 from Keith's estate, which she soon blows.
But far from ending on a downer, Viv ends up joining the Jehovah's Witnesses and sings triumphantly that she "spent, spent, spent."
The music of Steve Brown, who died earlier this year, is complex and varied, sometimes touching on a northern English folk sound, at other times Sondheimesque in its complexity of melody and rhythm. The lyrics are functional but tend towards the simplistic and predictable, although there are some nice comic touches.
Director Josh Seymour's staging is constantly surprising and innovative and certainly never dull, while musical director Livi van Warmelo keeps the six-piece band, housed in a makeshift shed just outside the theatre module, sounding fantastic (sound design is by Richard Brooker and Nick Lodge).
As a piece of theatre for an adult audience that nonetheless fills you with the joy of the season, the Royal Exchange's offering hits all the right notes and is a perfect way to spend an evening at the theatre at this time of year.