Review: Happy Jack is a slice of Yorkshire life at the coalface

Lauren Crisp is a book editor, writer and keen follower of arts and culture. She reviews theatre and cultural events in and around the district in her spare time.

You can contact Lauren on laurencrispwriter@gmail.com. 

Happy Jack was penned by award-winning Yorkshire-born playwright John Godber just two years before the 1984 miners’ strike. A revival of the play, which chronicles not just Godber’s own family history but that of the region, is now taking a brief summer tour through its home county.

In an honest, warts-and-all insight into typical working-class family life, Happy Jack recounts the story of Jack, a coal miner from West Yorkshire, and his wife, Liz. We soon learn that ‘Happy Jack’ is an ironic moniker his wife lends him: Jack is, really, a rather belligerent fellow.

The two-person cast, with Frazer Hammill as Jack and Martha Godber as Liz, narrates the couple’s tale as if reading a book: flicking through and announcing a page number, the pair pick out the most notable, though truly ordinary, chapters of a life spent together.

Jack sits in the corridor as Liz gives birth; they listen to records and reminisce; they bicker as Jack hogs the fire and they argue over dinner. A ramshackle collection of household objects makes up the production’s set, the relics and remnants of the pair’s existence. Their life is mundane, one long routine broken only by an eagerly anticipated annual holiday to the Yorkshire coast.

In a monologue, Liz reflects on the frustrations of a life lived within the same four walls, and especially as the wife of a miner, with a spouse who disappears below ground every day, leaving her uncertain of his return. Jack’s tough exterior occasionally cracks when he feels inclined to write a poem, which he recites with an unusual tenderness. He imagines alternative lives as a football player and a lion-tamer, recounting fanciful tales to his grandson with zeal.

We are guided through the narrative in reverse order, from death to the moment Jack first asks Liz out. It’s a neat structure: one which provides a sense of nostalgia and reflection, of relief from the drudgery, of appreciation of a married life despite its hardships. Ultimately, a long marriage comes back to the moment of meeting. There is no outward affection between Jack and Liz, but love is found in the moments in between.

Hammill and Godber’s performances exude a rawness and a clean simplicity. Quiet and gentle, despite the constant bickering, this latest production of a now decades-old play overflows with realism, humour and warmth.

Happy Jack is on at Harrogate Theatre until Saturday 29 June.

Thank you for reading this article. Next week the Stray Ferret will become a subscription publication. For less than a pound a week you will be able to access all our content.

Please subscribe and support quality, local journalism - to find out more click here. 

Read more:

• Review: Home, I’m Darling is Fascinating, Very So
• Internationally acclaimed soprano in Harrogate for hometown concert
• Review: Made in Dagenham is mighty and moving