REVIEW IN THE CAMDEN REVIEW
The Taylor's Last Stand at Barons Court
Theatre
The Taylor's Last Stand
Published:
07 March, 2013
by JACK COURTNEY O'CONNOR
THE TAILOR’S LAST STAND
Barons Court Theatre
WRITER and academic Ian Buckley based this
play on his Communist tailor father’s anecdotes about the meetings of the
National Union of Tailors and Garment Workers, as well as Communist Party
meetings his father attended.
This is in some ways an endearing play – but,
as O’Brien tells his comrade colleague Barney after listening to a long and
rather tedious anti-Stalin joke: “You need a good punch line!”
Buckley’s piece is a rather lightweight,
sentimental offering that lacks a hard-edged analysis of the failure of the
British left and of world communism – but that would be a different play.
Here we have four elderly comrades winding up
their union branch and reminiscing on past glories.
The action takes place in the meeting room of
the Bethnal Green Labour Party, in which portraits of all the post-war Labour leaders
line the walls – with one obvious exception.
The ethnic mix of the comrades rings true and
reminded me of colleagues who attended Young Socialist meetings in the 1960s:
an Irish cockney from “County Kilburn”, two quarrelsome Jewish tailors – bespoke,
of course – Max and Barney (Edmund Dehn and Tony Parkin) and a humorous Welshman, George (Terry Jermyn).
The sub-plot, which centred on Max and Barney
and the love of their lives who disappeared in the Soviet Union is only
marginally successful but director Harry Saks adds much visual interest and the
actors perform with style and gusto.
UNTIL MARCH 10
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