Mediocre show’s a tower of dullness

POLES APART, Lowry, to Saturday

JOHN Godber’s work has been tailing off for years now, like he’s a bit bored with the stage but can’t bring himself to give it up.

But with plays like this one, more than a few members of the audience will surely wonder why he still gets behind a script — in this case his own — at all when the result is so mediocre.

Poles Apart isn’t about being Polish — despite one of the main characters being an immigrant Polish builder; neither is it about him being an amateur pole dancer.

In fact the evening is basically a rant about the differences between people who like theatre and the arts and people who don’t, and what Philistines the latter are.

Builders Phil, Pete and Jan (Keith Hukin, Adrian Hood and Frazer Hammill) have put up a tower scaffold to reach the roof and mend a leak.

Unfortunately they have erected it on a theatre stage — much to the annoyance of the theatre boss (Rob Hudson) - on which a one-woman show by Abi (Ruby Thompson) is due to be staged that night, and which is needed for rehearsals.

Abi argues for her art and against the lecherous nods and winks of the rough-hewn builders, one of whom has never been in a theatre to see a production and can’t understand the fuss.

The builders in turn exercise their right to free speech by wondering if the show has any nudity. They know what they like.

But the whole potentially lively, if inconsequential, discussion forum is handled with a leaden air.

Godber’s jokes fall flat, the script drags out a simple story across less than two hours with a dullness that makes it seem like three, and the entire premise is frankly more than a little pretentious.

If people don’t like theatre and prefer more lowbrow entertainment, that’s their business.

But even lowbrow stuff like this people won’t go to see, because it isn’t very good.