Yesterday it was the salsa class. Coming up is the panto. On other days, it may be anything from language lessons to arts and crafts. Today in this multipurpose venue, it is the turn of the annual Christmas fair, with its bric-a-brac stalls, grotto and tree. Sitting on four sides of the elegant ballroom in Chadderton town hall, a refuge for Oldham Coliseum during renovations, we require no leap of the imagination to picture ourselves at a genuine local fundraiser.
That gives Jim Cartwright’s 2012 play a built-in sense of community. Director Jimmy Fairhurst keeps the house lights up, save for the most poignant speeches, and expects us to clap along to the Christmas hits and cheer the young carol singers as if they were children of our own. Blurring the fact/fiction divide, the interval is less a break in the action than a chance to buy the scented candles and prints by Oldham artists that are otherwise part of the set.
