Review: Rutherford and Son, Lace Market Theatre

Some “unjustly neglected” plays are not, as it happens, unjustly neglected – they’re not very good. But this Lace Market production, directed by Marcus Wakely, provides evidence enough that Rutherford and Son is a fine piece. Amazingly, although it dates from 1912, this might be its East Midlands premiere.

The play is in the same sub-genre as the contemporary but better known Hobson’s Choice: a tyrannical, northern new-money patriarch is presiding over a family made tragically dysfunctional by his misrule.

It’s sturdy and well crafted. All right, some characters are given implausibly long and eloquent speeches to deliver. This, and the stock cliché of a baby crying off-stage at the end as a symbol of possible hope for the future, are gripes, but not serious ones.

Acting is of a high standard, with Geoff Longbottom giving the outstanding performance as Rutherford himself. His character commands the stage at the same time as being vulnerable and pitiable; he’s perplexed by most of what’s going on around him.

Rutherford’s two sons are admirably played by Sam Allison and George Page-Bailey, respectively John and Richard. The former is married with a son of his own but still struggling to make his own independent way in the world. The latter is a failed curate, belittled by his father.

Charlie Osborne is splendid as Rutherford’s daughter Janet, at thirty-six a pathetic spinster. So is Tilda Stickley as daughter-in-law Mary, significantly an outsider, a southerner; and the only one who proves able to successfully assert herself.

It’s a suitably sombre set, a prosperous but lifeless living room: the picture frames on the wall are blank. And the pre-Great War costumes are well observed. Background music, which exactly suits, is snatches of Brahms’s Second Cello Sonata.

This is the Lace Market Theatre near its solid and honest-to-goodness best.

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