Hull Truck Theatre launches its summer season with a spirited revival of Richard Bean's To Have and to Hold, originally produced by Hampstead Theatre in November 2023. This production features two of the original team: director Terry Johnson and much-loved local actor Adrian Hood.
Flo (Paula Wilcox) and Jack (Ian Bartholomew) are nearing the end. He's a former Hull police officer, long-retired and living out his twilight years with wife Flo in the delightfully named East Yorkshire village of Wetwang (actually more famous locally for its excellent fish and chips than its name). Married for 70 years and in their nineties, they've got to the point when they realise they can no longer look after themselves. Although helped by kindly neighbour "Rhubarb" Eddie (Adrian Hood) and cousin Pam (Sara Beharrell), the couple call upon their successful children, novelist Rob (Stephen Tompkinson) and entrepreneur Tina (Rebecca Johnson), to a family conference to decide their futures.
The cast is uniformly excellent. In the roles of the elderly couple, Ian Bartholomew and Paula Wilcox achieve a chemistry characterised by sniping, point scoring and almost willful misunderstanding, yet there is a devotion underscoring every interaction. I'm sure I wasn't the only member of the audience to get the irony that the same actors recently played a divorced couple at the centre of a savagely compelling domestic abuse storyline in Coronation Street. Their performances are in turn funny, sharp, gentle and endearing. The conveying of the relationship between Flo and Jack is perhaps the strongest feature of a strong production.
Stephen Tompkinson is terrific as Rob, wryly humorous yet wistful, a man successful in his professional life but less so personally. Rebecca Johnson is the more confident, less reflective Tina, convincingly warm towards her brother but ruthless in business. There may be actors with better comic timing than Adrian Hood but I don't know them, and Sara Beharrell's lethal Pam shows precisely how one may 'smile and smile and be a villain'!
It's a light-touch story. There's no recriminatory confrontation between generations, no sibling resentment and no bitter family feud. The characters bicker with good humour and love as they struggle to find the solution to the ailing couple's situation. As one might expect from a craftsman like Bean, the humour is warm, organic to the situation and thoroughly engaging. If the plot is a little thin, ultimately it doesn't matter. Terry Johnson's production exudes compassion that connects with its audience and delivers, supported by Dawn Allsopp's superb design. The ornamental plates perched atop a delph rack demonstrate Dawn's expert knowledge of Yorkshire living rooms!
This is a tale of a deeply committed if physically disparate family; the lack of much of a dramatic 'problem' means the play feels a little too long for its subject matter, but a punch is dealt in the final scenes when the children clear the family home. It's a scene all too familiar to those of us of a certain age. Without wishing to provide plot spoilers, the moment Stephen Tomkinson as Rob discovers his father's police whistle is one of the most affecting and beautifully realised I've seen in the theatre in years.
To Have and To Hold isn't going to set the world alight. Richard Bean has written plays of greater political bite and greater 'laugh out loud' comedy. But as a gentle reminder of the inevitability of old age and the bittersweet nature of inter-generational relationships, it hits its marks flawlessly.