Review: FUN HOME, Royal Exchange Theatre
Photo credit: Johan Persson
After its UK premiere at The Young Vic back in 2018, Fun Home finally receives its UK regional premiere at the Royal Exchange Theatre in Manchester. This Royal Exchange production, directed by Sarah Frankcom, comes 20 years on from the publication of Alison Bechdel’s graphic novel Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic upon which the musical is based on.
The narrative of the musical is told from the perspective of cartoon artist Alison Bechdel as she is in the process of creating her graphic novel memoir following her childhood, family relationships, discovery of sexuality, and loss of her father. Throughout this creative process, the cast playout various moments from Alison’s life as she observes and occasionally commentates in reflection and realisation.
Alison Bechdel is portrayed by three performers in the musical to show different stages of her life. Jodie McNee portrays Alison as an adult as she looks back on her life to create her memoir, acting as a narrator for the audience. Alice Audrey O’Hanlon plays Medium Alison, a young college student in the midst of discovering her sexuality and truths about her parents. The role of Small Alison, the childhood version of the character, is shared between three young performers which, at the press night performance, was played by Harriet O’Shea. All three performers portraying Alison give powerful heartfelt acting performances with excellent vocals, but what elevates all of their individual performances is how believable McNee, O’Hanlon and O’Shea are as the same person at different ages through appearance and mannerisms; casting director Natalie Gallacher CDG has clearly nailed it with the casting of all three versions of Alison.
Alongside the three actors playing Alison, the main cast comprises Nigel Harman and Alex Young as parents Bruce and Helen Bechdel, Natasha Cottriall as college love interest Joan, and Lucca Chadwick-Patel multi-roling as various characters dotted in amongst the story. Harman and Young ironically are excellent together showing the strained relationship between the married couple when alone and around their children. Cottriall’s Joan, in scenes with O’Hanlon’s Medium Alison, beautifully show the awkwardness and joy of discovering yourself and young love. Whilst on the surface Chadwick-Patel’s roles may seem small and insignificant to the story, they actually provide more depth and context to the hidden lifestyle of Harman’s Bruce, which is vital for adult Alison to reflect on and analyse. We can’t discuss the cast without giving a special mention to the production’s Young Company teams. For the press night performance, the audience had the pleasure of watching Team Maple Avenue, made up of the previously mentioned Harriet O’Shea as Small Alison, alongside Reuben Shepherd as John and Theo Wake as Christian. This small but mighty trio give larger than life performances and are especially thrilling to watch when the three of them dominate the stage in the musical number ‘Come to the Fun Home’. One of the strongest young companies you’ll see onstage, these young performers certainly have a bright future in theatre.
As a quite exposing and personal story, it would be quite easy to overwhelm the space with too much set, but this production uses just the right amount, and designer Peter Butler and lighting designer Bethany Gupwell have cleverly incorporated some of the lighting amongst the set design, most notably the TV and the structure above the centre of the stage with LED ripples that light up in various patterns, which visualises Alison’s descriptions of her artistic process, and gives the audience the feeling that they are seeing inside Alison’s head. Gupwell’s lighting design also makes use of the Royal Exchange’s unique structure with some lighting coming from outside the auditorium for the effect of fireworks being viewed through a window, which is an ingenious choice.
Frankcom’s direction is very precise and effective which considers the characters interacting within the memories, Alison watching over the action and remaining very present without pulling focus, and not overusing the theatre’s revolving stage - having it available could be tempting to make use of it as much as possible, but the moments when it is utilised feel as though they have been carefully selected. When a story is a real person’s own lived experience, bringing it to life onstage has to be done delicately to do the original person justice, and this musical (written by Lisa Kron with music by Jeanine Tesori) has done just that. Every word in scenes or songs has been perfectly selected to capture the emotional rollercoaster of the Bechdel family’s life, with Tesori’s music accompanying each moment with the perfect tone.
Simultaneously fun and heart-wrenching, Fun Home is a beautifully tragic exploration of sexuality and family truths with gorgeous music, brilliant direction and outstanding performances. No matter where you live, this production is worth making the trip to Manchester to see!
***** Five stars
Reviewed by: Jess Dalloway
Fun Home plays at Manchester’s Royal Exchange Theatre until 1 August, with further info here.