Review: Hobson's Choice at Manchester

by Brian Bamford

HOBSONS CHOICE= एक ही विकल्प (pr. {ek hi vikalp} )(Noun)
ROYAL EXCHANGE 

Hobson's Choice by Harold Brighouse.  

In a new adaptation by Tanika Gupta. 

Directed by Atri Banerjee

'HOBSON's CHOICE' has historically come to represent 'a choice of taking what is offered or nothing at all; lack of an alternative'

The original play was drafted in outline by Stanley Houghton, who with Anne Horniman, the tea heiress, worked together to create the so called Manchester School at the then Gaiety Theatre at the junction of Mount Street and Peter Street.  After he died in December 1913, his friend Harold Brighouse reassembled Houghton's plays from his notebooks, and he wrote a new piece using Houghton's original title.

The most powerful figure in the play is Maggy Hobson [Durga Hobson at the Royal Exchange] who is in conflict with her father, and she captures control of the situation by drawing the artisan tailor [Ali Mossop at the Exchange] under her spell and manipulating him in her war with her own father Henry Horatio Hobson [Hari Hobson at the Exchange].

I must confess that I had some misgivings when I went to see this play and I asked the publicity officer Paula Rabbitt, if we would be hearing any Lancashire accents on the night.  I ought not to have worried, it was a fine production adapted by Tanika Gupta.

Albert G. Andrews who took on the role of Mr. Hobson when it was first performed in 1915, wasn't an Eccles lad, but the as the program says:  'but then few professional actors were at that point in time'.  But as the program also says:  'This was a period when it was still perfectly acceptable for an actor playing a regional character to get away with a vague stab at the appropriate accent.' 

It is pointed out that 'Even Dick Van Dyke as a would-be Cockney chimney-sweep in MARY POPPINS was 50 years in the future.'  And we learn that 'Consequently, though many actors were northern, few of them were from anywhere near Salford.'  Even Wilfred Pickles who hailed from Halifax in West Yorkshire developed an enduring relationship with the play, and he took the role of William Mossop [Ali Mossop in the Exchange play].

I ought to say that Esh Alladi as Ali Mossop the hard working tailor at the Royal Exchange played a good part, he has to develop a spine within the play and ultimately take on tho boss.  The dynamic of the play is presented as a case of a deserving hard worker who becomes victorious but with tho aid of a strong woman.  In this way Ali Mossop grows in stature in the play, yet the most comic element is where Ali asks for the advice of his male friends on how to perform on his wedding night and looks for prompts on what to do.  In the end he is told to let nature take its course.

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