Road review – Johnny Vegas lands his punches in bitter riposte to Thatcher’s Britain

2026-02-20 - 12:43

Royal Exchange, Manchester Director Selina Cartmell delivers a giddily theatrical take on Jim Cartwright’s slice-of-life portrait Selina Cartmell’s vision for Jim Cartwright’s play is big. Too big to be contained within the regular loop of the auditorium, even when the director uses the full height of the in-the-round space, sending her actors up ladders and getting them to pop out from the upper level. More than that, before the show and in the interval, her production spills into the wider building. Leslie Travers’s set is scattered like so much post-industrial debris into corners where, if you get there early and time it right, you will see actors perform sketches of working-class life: some pre-party preening; a boozy game of darts; a lost soul wandering with her shopping trolley. Continue reading...