Review of Spend Spend Spend at Royal Exchange, Manchester.
After winning £152,000 on the football pools in 1961 (the equivalent of over £4,000,000 today), Viv Nicholson famously declared “I’m going to spend, spend, spend”. True to her word, she and her husband Keith indulged in a giddy blur of expensive cars, jewellery, furs and partying. Within five years, she would be declared bankrupt.
Steve Brown and Justin Greene’s musical doesn’t solely feast on the sensational headlines, serving up instead a more rounded portrait of the woman behind them.
A good chunk of the show’s first half takes place before she hits the jackpot. Viv’s early life in a Yorkshire mining community might be perceived by some as filled with ‘Northern charm’, if you find male chauvinism, economic deprivation, and insularity endearing.
A cleverly staged number, ‘John Collier’, highlights the limited opportunities on offer on Viv’s doorstep. Built around the tough daily grind of life in a colliery town, the men sing of their repetitive back-breaking work underground. While, trapped at home, wives frantically clean the house and cook the tea. In a telling twist, the men leave the stage in the song’s final moments – and suddenly alone, the women stare out at us hopelessly. Behind them, the ladders that the men used to climb down into the pit, suddenly seem to offer a symbolic means of escape from the drudgery of domestic life – only for all those rungs to begin rising up, slowly disappearing out of reach.
Is it any wonder there’s a deep hunger burning within Rose Galbraith’s deftly realised Viv to taste something better? Discovering she and her husband have won the pools, she seems to grab at the air, wanting more after years of scraping by with so little.
Yet, the musical awkwardly depicts Viv as yearning for more than material wealth, with some deep-seated need to be physically desired, loved – a woman somehow shaped for much of her life by her relationships with men. Those looking for insight into the real Vic Nicholson may feel short-changed.
The majority of the show is told with the benefit of hindsight, as the older Viv, played by Rachel Leskovac, recounts her meteoric rise and fall. Leskovac is a constant presence – narrating, observing and reflecting. Perhaps in a misguided effort not to overshadow Galbraith’s performance as the young Viv, Leskovac feels a bit under-powered, her characterisation indistinct. Too often, her pained, knowing expression suggests not depth of emotion, but a touch of face-ache.
Finally she lets rip in Who’s Going to Love Me?, a soaring duet with Galbraith, her heartfelt vocals unlocking a matching performance.
Later as Galbraith’s Viv hands over the story to her older incarnation, and leaves the stage, Leskovac effortlessly takes things up a notch. Her Viv, older and wiser, comes into clearer focus.
Josh Seymour’s debut production at the Royal Exchange is remarkably sure-footed – enjoyably effervescent and possessed of a restless ingenuity. Wheeled pieces of set whizz on and off, characters emerge unexpectedly, things suddenly appear or even go up in flames. It’s all highly entertaining and helped in no small part by Lucy Hinds’ wonderful go-big choreography, combining the romance and drama of ballroom with the breathless pizazz of musical theatre.
There’s something tellingly insubstantial about the glamourous trappings on display. Designer Grace Smart’s gloriously oversized chandelier is a mirage of tinsel, the fast cars a patchy blur of neon, and short-lived flung fistfuls of sparkle mark moments of celebration. Light bounces off the production’s shiny surfaces, as if winking knowingly – a subtly semaphored reminder that all that glitters isn’t gold.
Production seen on 28 November 2024.
Spend Spend Spend runs at Royal Exchange, Manchester from 23 November 2024 to 11 January 2025.
Images by Helen Murray.
Circles & Stalls 