Sweat - Royal Exchange Theatre

Sweat - photo by Helen Murray.

IT was the seminal 80s TV drama Boys from the Blackstuff that shaped my politics by humanising the way our economic system can wreck the lives of those who turn to it for their livelihoods.

So it is with Lynn Nottage’s Pulitzer prize winning stage play Sweat, a powerful reminder about how the afore mentioned system is still wrecking lives and putting pay to long term friendships while allowing others thrive and prosper.

If people only go to the theatre to be entertained that’s fine. But when this emotional art form gives a voice to the voiceless as effectively as it does here the experience can be just as rewarding.

If unsettling at the same time.

The action takes place in your archetypal American bar in which a large number of its clients hail from a local steel factory facing an uncertain future. The bartender is a former factory employee, Stan, played by a very convincing Jonathan Kerrigan.

Good Teeth has designed a sparse, albeit authentic looking set, the sort of bar that’s a real antidote to cosiness much loved by say, American sitcoms. Let’s just say jokes are at a premium anyway.

Cynthia, a factory employee, has been promoted to a management role which sparks a certain resentment among her former colleagues and the always watchable Carla Henry is perfect in the role.

They say football is a game of two halves and it’s probably fair to say Jade Lewis’s production has more of an emotional impact in act two.

While Sweat is probably 10-15 minutes too long the play left me angry about the way in which people’s lives can be devastated once they’re viewed as “expendable” by the system even though Nottage’s writing resists the temptation to be preaching or political.

Until May 26. Tickets are available from 0161 833 9833 or www.royalexchange.co.uk.

Star rating - 3.5 out of 5.