Review of The Gap at Hope Mill Theatre.
From teenage bedroom to a communal lounge in sheltered housing, Jim Cartwright’s The Gap follows two friends across half a century of ups and downs.
It’s quite a coup for Hope Mill Theatre – not just bagging the premiere of a new Cartwright play, but also securing the services of Denise Welch and Matthew Kelly to bring this two-hander to life.
The bright and breezy production sees Corral (Welch) and Walter (Kelly) ditch the limitations of life in a northern mill town to head down to swinging sixties London.
Early doors, Cartwright shows he still enjoys having fun with language – as the pair wave goodbye to a list of grim, grimy northern landmarks and gleefully greet a rollcall of the capital’s many attractions – “ta-ta to stingy streetlamps, hiya to bright lights”. As their enthusiasm mounts, their thoughts quicken and those exclamations echo the sound of their Euston-bound train – ta-ta, ta-ta, ta-ta, ta-ta.
Settled in Soho, money soon becomes an issue and somehow the two of them end up ensconced in a ‘luxury’ flat (all starry-eyed about life with a kitchenette, loofah, and soft towels) – from which Corral offers discreet sexual services.
Recollections may vary about their respective roles at the time. While Walter still views himself as the “mastermind behind the operation”, in Corral’s eyes he merely “basked in (her) glory and changed the sheets”.
Whatever the truth, the arrangement offers them the resources to have a great time, flinging them right into the heart of London’s thriving social scene.
Suddenly their origins have a certain cachet, (“say groovy in that northern accent”), and Cartwright mingles the duo into a cavalcade of iconic cultural encounters. Fact and fiction dizzyingly collide. Did Corral teach Mick Jagger to dance? Did Ringo Starr lend his cap to Walter? And did Francis Bacon crave capturing Corral on canvas?
Oddly, while Cartwright dishes up the details of Corral’s sexual and romantic exploits, he is surprisingly coy as to confirmed bachelor Walter’s inner passions.
As well as their central characters, Denise Welch and Matthew Kelly are called upon to inhabit a supporting cast of bit-parts and bystanders. Both provide high-wattage performances, assured and energetic. They revel in the contours and contortions of the dialogue – after one particularly alliterative aside Kelly’s Walter jokes “good job I’ve got my teeth in.”
Unfortunately, they are hemmed in by a production that feels overly gung-ho. Rather than leaving Cartwright’s lines to generate laughs, there’s a tendency to deploy silly wigs, daft spectacles and unlikely moustaches. At such moments, the show heads towards the end of the pier.
Frequent changes of costume are hindered by the set’s overreliance on a pair of hyperactive sliding panels. Video projections signal changes in time or setting but too often feel half-hearted.
Susan Kulkarni’s costume designs are a highlight – colourful and fun. Minidress, kaftan, and kinky boots one minute; slippers and knitwear the next.
Things take a darker turn in the second half – the friends fall out, and both struggle to make ends meet. Suddenly it is clear that in their glory days they weren’t as central to the London scene as they thought – contemplating a photo of The Krays, Walter spots Corral, “a blurry face in the background”.
As the pair bump further and further down the ladder, and hit tough times, more serious issues struggle to cut through. Large sections of the audience are as loud and giddy as a drunken coach party to Blackpool in response to the characters’ acerbic wit, but efforts at pathos or reflection fail to land as solidly.
Admittedly, The Gap doesn’t dive to the savage depths of Cartwright’s earlier work, content instead to bob entertainingly upon the surface – and that’s fair enough. However, this light-hearted tale of enduring friendship is not without some subtlety, if only the production felt more inclined to cherish it.
Performance seen on 14 February 2024.
The Gap runs at Hope Mill Theatre from 9 February to 16 March 2024.
Images by Pamela Raith.
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