A Taste of Honey review, Lyttelton Theatre

A Taste of Honey is a 1950s kitchen sink drama in which distracted and feckless Helen abandons her neglected teen, Jo, to start a new life. In Helen's absence, Jo becomes pregnant by Jimmy, a black sailor who returns to sea. In steps gay art student, Geoffrey, who turns the women's midden into a home and offers Jo unconditional support.  Like a wounded animal, the young girl takes time to learn to trust, and just as it's all starting to work, back comes Helen. Whither now?

Shelagh Delaney's play - written when she was 18 - elegantly sums up the dilemma of being female and working class, dependent on the earning and social power of men for release from poverty. Helen has held things together on her own, but is grateful for every gainful distraction: when a man's in the room, her daughter becomes invisible. It is a complex relationship based on love, mutual resentment, and sexual rivalry.  Throw issues around race, sexuality, and illegitimacy into the mix and what do you get?  A Taste of Honey is all fire, but  Bijan Sheibani's  production is short on kindling.

The first half, which ends with Helen marrying Peter - ten years her junior, is slowed by continuous dialogue, every action and feeling is articulated. Hildegard Bechtler's magnificent set, a towering terraced house sliced open, underscores Jo's isolation, but forces all the action to the middle of the stage. For a Salford slum, the framing is disconcertingly one dimensional. Beyond the beautiful backdrop of a sludged river, water tower and factories, there is no sense of the community: no ambient noise of people on the street or movement on the water, no thrum of plant machinery. Even when Peter's grumpily waiting in the car, there's no toot, no idling engine. Dance interludes separating scenes are charming but gratuitous, as is the smooth jazz. The big critics love Sheibani, but I find him high on style and low on substance. It's all spit and no grit.

In conclusion: Lesley Sharp is a sexy, complex, giddy Helen, but Kate O'Flynn's Jo, already a chip off the old block, gives only occasional glimpses beneath the surface. It's possible we couldn't see her finer expressions from Row U. Perversely, it's the energetic adults - Sharp, and Dean Lennox Kelly, very funny as the bullying drunk Peter - who stay in the mind.


References
Lyttelton Theatre, Tickets

Lyttelton Theatre, National Theatre, South Bank, London SE1 9PX.   Run ends 11 May.