Downstairs, in Fenton town hall’s cute cafe, local theatregoers spot me as an out-of-towner and begin speaking of their region’s once glorious past, from its potteries to its literary godfather in Arnold Bennett, before getting on to Brexit and this corner of Stoke-on-Trent, which, they say, has been so badly “left behind”.
Upstairs, Bennett’s long-gone world of wealth, upward-mobility and opportunity, brought to life on the hall’s handsome ballroom, gives their words poignancy. The drama features the fictional town of Bursley in 19th-century Stoke and its protagonist is the incorrigible Denry Machin, a left-behind of the Victorian era at the start and humble son of a washerwoman.
Except that this wily upstart discovers his talent for financial opportunism to duck and dive his way from rags to riches. Bennett’s typically twisty tale of aspiration and social mobility is adapted by Deborah McAndrew and directed by Conrad Nelson with such wit and ingenuity that it trumps even the roguish charm of the 1952 film of Bennett’s novel featuring Alec Guinness.
Denry (Gareth Cassidy) quickly rises from lowly clerk to the town’s youngest mayor after a series of madcap money-making schemes. He is the consummate capitalist entrepreneur who makes his wealth from different forms of rent collecting and money lending – a benign version of Dickens’ Scrooge – although the sharper, more self-serving edges of Bennett’s original tale have been shaved away to render him a “fun” type of Tory here.
Cassidy’s is a far more picaresque figure than Guinness’s Denry (his accent fits better than Guinness’s RP, too) and he plays his part with heavy helpings of cheeky-chappie bonhomie.
Best of all is the big, vivid sound of a brass band (led by Jef Sparkes), which brings a lump to the throat from the minute its players march into the hall. There is delicate song, dance and twinkling meta-moments alongside the comedy, with a kazoo-like sound from a brass instrument for comic effect, and a thrilling number in which a typewriter is “played” alongside the band.
Actors from the Claybody Community Company play violins, flutes and sing liltingly, as well as doubling up in their parts, enacting scenes as well as becoming narrators.
Jessica Dyas is particularly winning as the tartly aspirational Ruth, while Denry’s mother is played by the burly, bearded Howard Chadwick, in a shawl and bonnet, with all the growly charm of Steve Pemberton in his League of Gentlemen days.
Dawn Allsopp’s set is light and gestural and the production emanates both mischief and stateliness, never too frantic despite the plot turns and fast physical scenes, with a full and fluid use of the long traverse ballroom space. Allsopp’s costumes are understated but beautiful: the men in tails at the opening ball, the women in pale-blue dresses whose shades are repeated in the band’s colours.
The comedy sometimes seems too cartoonish, the characters flat, but they grow to become touching. There is a timeless elegance to it all and it is oddly moving by the end, despite the knowing winks and meta moments. This might easily be entertainment for audiences of more than a century ago or equally for now, and represents the best of community theatre.
The Card is at Fenton town hall, Stoke-on-Trent, until 9 July.
