Origin stories: they’re all the rage, and here comes the Hull Truck theatre company’s genesis tale. Writer Richard Bean takes us back to 71 Coltman Street in December 1971, where in the beginning of Hull Truck was Mike Bradwell, and Mike Bradwell’s word was God.
He and a cohort of actors stationed themselves in Hull to fight a battle against a Yorkshire winter and the prospect of employment. Bradwell jokes that it’s better than Stratford, because if you sign on there, “there’s a chance they will find you a job”. No such concerns in Hull 1971. He underlines the joke by explaining that the two funding streams of culture in Britain at the time were the Arts Council and the dole.
It’s a good joke but it’s an old one, and that is the biggest issue with this production: most of the jokes are recycled and Bean completists will have heard almost all of them before. They’ll recognise the slapstick interlude from One Man, Two Guvnors, the jokes based on vernacular idiosyncrasies from Up on Roof and the one-liners from, well, all Bean’s work.
He pulls off a nice, Noises Off-esque trick as he gives us a framing device early on (I won’t spoil the surprise). As Mike Bradwell, Kieran Knowles brings heft to the role. In fact the whole company is a demonstration in the art of perfect casting, from the ever impressive Lauryn Redding as Bradwell’s lover Linda to Jordan Metcalfe as frustrated playwright Julian. Then there’s local favourite Adrian Hood, who was comic pathos itself in Bean’s Royal Court hit Harvest. He gives a masterclass in comedy as Our Seth, a slightly confused overgrown child whose pets have a habit of departing this world prematurely.
As you might expect for a play about Hull Truck, performed in Hull Truck to celebrate the half century of Hull Truck, there is an intense parochialism here. The East Riding jokes went over my West Riding-raised head: they will not play in Sloane Square.
All in all it is a fun night and the raucous origin story of the theatre in which it plays is entertaining, but there’s an element of “stop me if you’ve heard this one”, and if you know Bean’s work you almost certainly will have.
• At Hull Truck theatre until 12 March.
