Bottleneck by Hightide Festival Theatre

Brilliant tour de force acting by James Cooney and excellent  writing by Luke Barnes.  This is a one man (or boy) show, telling the story of a 14 year old Liverpudlian schoolboy and his friend Tom, their somewhat seamy adventures at school and his home life with his violent father in “The Boot”-  a cul de sac in what appears to be quite a deprived area of Liverpool.  He is looking forward to his forthcoming 15^th birthday, and he tells us how he and his friend beg, borrow and steal money to pay for tickets to see his hero – “Barnesy” play football.  This would be his first time at a big match.  Initially lots of wry, gritty humour, painting a very believable picture of its era and place.  It is not until they are on their way to the match in their friend’s car that it becomes clear what their final destination is.  Sheffield.  As soon as that word was mentioned I knew they were heading for that fateful match at the Hillsborough stadium and tension and apprehension started to creep in.

The description of what happened in the stadium that day was chilling, realistically and simply told in a  very effective way.  It will stay with me for a long time.  My then partner had been in the Hillsborough stadium that day, although fortunately away from the ill fated stand, so it brought back personal memories of watching the tragedy unfold on tv.  Too close for comfort, really. 

Overall, powerful stuff, simple staging, 110% committed performance.  Technically speaking, I would have thought this was suitable for rural touring, however, it contained extremely strong language throughout and I am not sure which target audience it would be suitable for.  A young audience would relate to the main character but not necessarily to the theme as they would probably be too young to remember the Hillsborough disaster itself, although they would relate to the themes of friendship and bullying.   An older audience might not be comfortable with the strong language and the council estate and youth/football culture depicted.  Interesting, though, and an excellent piece of theatre.

Review by Gill Vickers