Family torment receives deserved applause

FAMILY FAVOURITES: The cast of "Spring and Port Wine". Rear (from the left) Kate Dobson, Gareth Cassidy, Joseph Carter, Lauren Dickenson, Isabel Ford. Front, James Quinn, Sam Lupton and Freddy the Cat, and Karen Henthorn.

SPRING AND PORT WINE

Oldham Coliseum, (to April 29)

WELL, this takes me back. I remember seeing this at the cinema back at the turn of the Seventies, which tells me two things: I was probably trying to impress a girl, since I was about 16, and thank God action hero blockbusters came along not too many years afterwards to make things easier.

Not that Bill Naughton's play-turned movie is a disappointment. This isn't great drama but Naughton was a characters man, and a pretty good one at that. He manages to build a family of distinctive character types and keeps the dialogue swirling nicely, so there's never a dull moment and a lot of funny ones.

In many ways the play is underrated, thanks to most people half remembering that it is about a father-daughter clash over a herring.

It is, but it's mainly about much more - like Jane Eyre at the Lowry this week. Rafe Crompton (James Quinn) is a product of his experiences in early life. Where Eyre became defiant and unwilling to bend to the rule of men, Rafe Crompton has grown up keen to dispel any notion he is an easy touch.

This has coloured his attitude to life and the family he loves - and has alienated the young members of the group and led the older ones to grow to hate him. But for all his faults, in James Quinn's hands Rafe becomes first a figure of hatred, but eventually one of sympathy - though perhaps in this production has rather more guile than expected.

In guest director Chris Honer' hands what is now a fairly quaint way of family life, described in a traditionally-written play, gets a thoroughly honest look and feel that on the opening night pleased the audience greatly, despite a few early signs of hesitancy from the cast.

The group gathered by Honer is actually a very good one: the bluffness of bluff James Quinn as Rafe plays well against the lovely, close protectiveness of long-suffering wife Daisy (Oldham actress Karen Henthorn). The family members - Joseph Carter and Sam Lupton as the sons, Lauren Dickinson as herring-hater Hilda and Kate Dobson as older sister Florence, Isabel Ford as the money-borrowing neighbour and Gareth Cassidy as Flo's intended - are real people as well as types, and the long applause at the final curtain is well deserved all round.