Counter Culture

★★★★★

544 words, 3 minutes read time.

Margaret Woods is an Employment Tribunal judge. In this one—woman show, Margaret (Hilary Cordery) is in control. The cases that come before her are at best like a game of chess. At worst, they are like a game of snakes and ladders. She talks about her latest case. It is in the preliminary stage. The employer will unleash a document deluge on the unsuspecting claimant. The unrepresented claimant will be unrepresented. She will be the arbiter in the room. She will rule by relying solely on the facts.

Margaret is haunted by her past. She was the victim of sexual harassment at work, but she wasn’t believed. Her relationship with her workaholic husband Nigel is strained. Her 25-year-old son Bradley recently moved out for ‘more independence.’ Bradley has passed his probationary period at work along with five others including a young woman called Cloë. They’re going out for drinks in the evening to celebrate this. Cloë is up for a promotion.

The story unfolds in a series of phone calls and revelations to the audience. Cloë doesn’t get her promotion. Bradley leaves a voicemail that unsettles Margaret who consults informally a colleague she thinks of as a slightly condescending friend. Beatrix recommends that Margaret write her concerns down. She will take a look to see if there’s anything to worry about.

Margaret’s life begins to unravel. She’s asked to ‘pop in’ to see Beatrix. Beatrix tells her that she has sent what was supposed to be a confidential report ‘upstairs.’ Margaret feels betrayed by Beatrix. She raised a hypothetical concern. Beatrix fears Daily Mail headlines that might bring the Employment Tribunes into disrepute. Margaret must ‘step to one side’ and be at home for thirty days.

Margaret’s professionalism conflicts with her love for and wish to protect her son. Cloë – ‘this manipulative young woman’ has accused him of sexual harassment. She says he used inappropriate language and stared at her constantly. She also accuses him of following her about at the party. She says he held her hand in the kitchen for a minute. Bradley has a meeting with the HR department and he’s given a letter. He’s been sacked. He’s gone to pieces. He thinks that raising an appeal would be a waste of time. Cloë has listed dates and times, he claims not to remember specifics. His mother thinks that he just wants it all to go away. He lashes out, saying that her concern is that she wants to protect herself.

This thoughtful play raises issues of acceptable workplace conduct. There are lots of questions. Did Bradley really harass Cloë at the party? Was that why he said ‘sorry’ a lot in his meeting with HR? Did Cloë make a vexatious claim against him, blaming him for her not winning the promotion she sought? Should Margaret have remembered when her allegations of sexual harassment weren’t believed and looked at Cloë’s allegations more objectively? Did her love for her son and wish to protect him cause her to jettison all her professional standards? How would she have ruled in Bradley and Cloë’s case if he had not been her son? The answers are ambiguous. The audience is left wondering.

Reviewed by David Kerr

Till the 24th of August 2024. Tickets here

★★★★★

444 words, 2 minutes read time.

Amid the background noises of feet walking up and down corridors and nearby doors banging, we meet Jack.  He’s waiting for his brother-in-law to take him out for the weekend to his sister’s house. This is a regular routine. He goes to Edna’s one weekend, and Lottie’s the next. While waiting for Sam, he recalls how he ended up in this ‘dark and sticky place’. It is Nettley, the ‘looney bin’ for soldiers.

He’s been institutionalised for fifty-odd years. Bit-by-bit, he reveals more of his past. When he was fifteen, his mother told him about the murder of the heir to the Austrian throne. He also learned about the evil machinations of the Kaiser. According to his mum, he was a madman who had to be stopped. There would be a war soon.

Jack’s brothers enlisted in the Leicestershire Regiment. He wanted to do his bit for the King and the Empire. He also wanted to make his parents proud of him. He wasn’t a coward. He bridled at his parents’ insistence that he work out his engineering apprenticeship until he reached 19. So, he gave a false name, lied about his age, enlisted in the regiment and headed off to France.

At Ypres, ‘Wipers’, he met rain, rain and more rain, and mud. Tasked with delivering a message, he fell off the duckboard and became stuck in deep sucking mud. Then the incessant shelling began. He was unable to move as men died all around him.

Stephen Wale spent ten years researching this one-man play. He brings the story of his late uncle to life. Gradually, he unfolds the sheer horror of Jack’s transformation. Jack changes from an enthusiastic underage volunteer in search of adventure to a shambling wreck of a man. He becomes a demobilised soldier gone berserk from the horrors he’d seen. Jack has been shut away in a mental institution since 1922 after he was caught breaking shop windows.

Closed away in Nettley, he’d seen the rise of Mussolini and Hitler. He’d also saw news of another war and the emergence of rock’n’roll music.

This play offers a poignant, timely warning today. War fever is heightening. Politicians and newspapers are talking up war. They are putting ‘boots on the ground’ to stop another ‘mad Kaiser’ in Moscow, Beijing or Tehran. Those boots are filled with human beings. Jack reminds us that we ought not to forget the Fallen. We also need to remember the Damaged. These are the old soldiers who suffered enormous mental trauma. They were shamefully shut away, institutionalised and robbed of their pensions.  Will we ever learn?

Reviewed by David Kerr

Till August 24th 2024. Tickets here