IMAGINE a world where imagination is forbidden. Coketown is such a place. Thomas Gradgrind will not permit fanciful thoughts in his school or his home. But what effect will this policy have on his own children, Tom and Louisa? How can he protect them from corrupting influences – especially when the circus comes to town?

Dark satanic mills, interrupted by the colour and vibrancy of Sleary’s Circus, set the stage for a sweeping tale of supressed love, seduction and social mores, peopled with the sharply observed exaggerated characters that Dickens is celebrated for.

Set in a northern mill-town rather than Dickens’s usual London, Hard Times tackles politics in an uncharacteristically rigorous fashion, bringing it closer to Disraeli’s Sybil than Pickwick Papers. Dickens seizes on utilitarianism – a philosophy most of us recognise as benign and socially progressive – and vilifies it as a great evil that poisons the human spirit. He expresses his loathing for trade unions, too. It’s all rather problematic, but Dickens just about pulls it off through sheer force of will.

Hard Times also contains the closest thing to a real, complex woman in Dickens’ s fiction. Louisa Gradgrind may be as neutered as the rest of his heroines, but she’s aware of her passionlessness, and blames it on the repressed upbringing she’s been subjected to. In Great Expectations, Dickens created a femme fatale, but Estella is icily secure in her fataleness. Louisa remains achingly vulnerable, a cold fish who longs to be a warm mammal.

Outstanding in this production by Northern Broadsides is Howard Chadwick as the banker and mill owner Josiah Bounderby who marries Louisa. His acting is excellent and he provides much humour in his role. He is well supported by Vanessa Schofield as Louisa and Andrew Price as her father Thomas Gradgrind, the local schoolmaster and MP for Coketown. Other notable performances came from Victoria Brazier as Mrs Sparshatt, Suzanne Ahmet as Sissy Jupe, Anthony Hunt as Steven Blackpool and Darren Kuppan as Bitzer and Mr Harthouse.

The play was very well directed by Conrad Nelson who also composed the music in the production with many of the actors also being accomplished musicians playing trumpet, trombone, tenor horn etc. The set, designed by Dawn Allsopp, is simple but very effective.

This was Charles Dickens with very much a northern twist thanks to the brilliance of the Northern Broadsides cast.

by John Burland