THE new Studio was so full the usher had to ask director Tim Welton to move to a space without cushioning. However, he could still sit comfortably as his directorial debut unfolded so impressively.
Welton, a leading player in the main house repertory company, is pulling the strings on the trio of two-handers on the theme of claustrophobic love in the first Studio season in the newly-converted former paint workshop.
Each play is to be performed by John Kirk and Lucy Chalkley, and once Happy Jack is joined by Arthur Smith's Live Bed Show on Wednesday and Enda Walsh's Disco Pigs on September 19, one black-box theatre will play host to two actors appearing in three plays each week until November 3.
Given that Smith's bedroom comedy is for adults only and Walsh's emotionally and sometimes physically violent teenage Irish drama is "not suitable for younger children", it made sense to start with Godber's northern love story, not least because it is the best known work of the three.
Enjoy Happy Jack, and you might experiment with another of the plays, the thinking goes.
That should be the recommendation anyway because of the superb performances of Kirk and Chalkley, who deserved extra credit on press night for overcoming the distraction of a buffeting wind causing noisy havoc with the new roofing.
Happy Jack, an early Godber work from 1985, is a study of a lifetime of love, from first date to final curtain, a journey told in reverse order by Kirk and Chalkley, who must age down from their 60s to their teens.
On a rudimentary set of a carpet, two chairs, a large gramophone player, a Mario Lanza LP, two pairs of slippers, and a box (for ease of costume change), they re-enact moments from the marriage of Jack Munroe, Yorkshire miner, father, brawler, lover, joker, con-man and sometime poet, and Liz, his wife hewn from the same street, school and Yorkshire grit.
Episodic in structure it may be, Happy Jack nevertheless flows like oil, with Kirk and Chalkey giving truthful and humorous performances full of pathos and spunk rather than glib sentiment.
Their Yorkshire accents are spot on too in Godber's own country.
What a Happy Jack-in-a-box start for the Studio.
Happy Jack, The Studio, York Theatre Royal, in repertoire until November 2. Box office: 01904 623568
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