An entertaining work in progress

THAT DAY WE SANG, Royal Exchange, Manchester (to January 18)

HERE’S a second outing for Victoria Wood’s unashamedly populist 2011 Manchester International Festival hit — this time as an Exchange Christmas show, already proving a big draw.

But it’s clear that whatever sweet, nostalgic and funny ideas Wood has about marking the famous 1929 Manchester children’s recording of Purcell’s ‘Nymphs and Shepherds’, then contrasting that with the lives of choir members at its 40th anniversary in 1969, this remains something of an entertaining work in progress, slightly rough and unsatisfying.

This version — not much changed from the original, but now set in the round - looks like being the basic script of a proposed TV play, and as I suggested in my review a couple of years ago, that could be where the show eventually makes most sense, disciplined by the realism of TV..

At the moment the show’s time-jumping run between nostalgia, comedy, songs and middle-aged loneliness and romance isn’t quite as clean and simple as it might be.

While the stage work still has Wood’s excellent songs — topped by leading lady Anna Francolini’s rendition of the show-stopping number about her character Enid’s boring name - it is also full of incident, so much so that at times it has the look of a series of loosely-related short scenes, rather than a coherent story.

Last time Wood herself directed and the comedy was easy and obvious, her funny, nostalgic dialogue about Matchmakers, Golden Egg restaurants and Berni Inns amusingly to the fore, and the budding romance between lonely, middle-aged pair Jimmy (Dean Andrews) and Enid sweetly measured.

Sarah Frankcom directs here and the result is both broader at some points and slightly more serious at others. But her use of the children’s choir is very cute (sweetly managed by Kelly Price as their choirmistress) and last night the performance of little William Haresceugh as young Jimmy (one of three boys performing the role) was simply delightful, his youthful joy and enthusiasm contrasting beautifully with the dulled life of the adult, insurance salesman he became.

Reservations aside, this is still a great choice of Christmas treat for anyone not - perhaps ironically - encumbered by children.