Ruth Leon recommends… A Taste of Honey – National Theatre
Ruth Leon recommendsA Taste of Honey – National Theatre
Readers of a ‘certain age’ will remember the shock of seeing the first production of Shelagh Delaney’s first play. Only 19 when she wrote it, she fully intended the furore that it caused. With the heedlessness and anger that only youth can draw on, the teenager wanted to draw attention to the issues of class, race, sexual consent, gender, sexual orientation and illegitimacy in mid-twentieth-century Britain, that she knew were not addressed in more conventional dramas.
John Osborne’s Look Back in Anger had emerged only two years earlier, in 1956, the acknowledged beginning of the tide of ‘kitchen sink’ dramas to which A Taste of Honey was a worthy successor.
I doubt that Shelagh Delaney had any idea that her first play, which she had intended to be a novel before deciding that it would have more impact in the theatre, would have the impact that it did although she hoped it would. Old-fashioned critics found it immature which, of course, it was, but the more contemporary writers saw guts, a new voice and an emerging talent to be nurtured.
Lindsay Anderson in Encore called the play “a work of complete, exhilarating originality,” and Kenneth Tynan wrote in the Observer, “Miss Delaney brings real people on to her stage, and, eventually, out of the zest for life she gives them, surviving”.
Now the National Theatre gives this seminal play a new fresh production. Naturally, it no longer has the kick it had in 1958 but many of the issues it questions have not been addressed in our own time, and some have worsened.
Lesley Sharp leads the cast as Helen in this gritty depiction of working-class life in post-war Britain. Kate O’Flynn is excellent as Jo. This production is an exhilarating portrayal of the vulnerabilities and strengths of the female spirit in a deprived and restless world.
When her mother Helen runs off with a car salesman, feisty teenager Jo takes up with Jimmie, a sailor who promises to marry her, before he heads for the seas. Art student Geof moves in and assumes the role of a surrogate parent until, misguidedly, he sends for Helen and their unconventional setup unravels.
A Taste of Honey was made into a successful film in 1961, directed by Tony Richardson who also wrote the screenplay from Shelagh Delaney’s play. The cast was led by Dora Bryan as Helen with Rita Tushingham as Jo. If you’re interested, the movie is available on video and bears very little resemblance to the original play.
The reviews for this National Theatre revival have been highly complimentary to the cast although they had some misgivings about the 60-year old play which inevitably creaks in places and uses language which was barely acceptable in 1968 and certainly wouldn’t be in a new play today but it is authentic for its time. The FT said, “Lesley Sharp is brittle, volatile and finally vicious as the feckless Helen, a woman brutally aware that her stock is falling. Kate O’Flynn is truculent, defiant and vulnerable as Jo, a love-starved loner thrust unwillingly into motherhood.”
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