Review: MARKET BOY, The Union Theatre

On Romford Market, they're duckin' and divin', wheelin' and dealin', movin' and groovin', as the 80s is boomin' and the cash keeps comin'. I'd seen them on Wimbledon Market back then, all the patter, the wink for the housewife, the lick of the lips for her daughter, the stuff they teach at the University of Life.

We're with our market boy, Brian, as he is initiated into this demi-monde of shady shysters, men and women who are always (just) on the right side of the law. He learns (natch) that, like Arthur Daley, most of them are "a little dodgy maybe, but underneath, they're all right". This is a working class community, where people help those who help themselves, everyone has their fair share of the bunce and the baksheesh (but not too much) and God Save The Queen!

We may have seen David Eldridge's characters before and he's not one to shy away from a stereotype or two, but there's a tough love warmth that suffuses this world within a world. And - more of this later - a lingering sense that this was being allowed slide away too quickly, too carelessly. As is often the case with a comedy, there are jokes, but the central issue is no joke at all.

When Boom! turned to Crash! as Maggie transformed into Major, the giant Lakeside Shopping Mall opened to provide a different kind of community - managed, sanitised, transactional. Later still, when Major transformed into Blair, Bluewater, outgianted Lakeside and high streets were left for bookies and charity shops and many of the old pitches became German Christmas Markets.

And, flowing towards us, was a river of goods called Amazon, a means to shop without ever having to meet a real person at all...

Director, Nicky Allpress keeps the pace up and gets plenty of energetic performances as a reward. Tommy Knight's Brian captures the fear of this new adult world and then the delight in his acceptance within it, Andy Umerah's alpha male stallholder seeing plenty of potential in the raw kid. Claudia Archer is also good as Brian's girlfriend and Grant Leat enjoys his celebration of the market's cavalcade of goods and services. Justin Williams' design is a wholly successful evocation of time and place.

This is Essex, the iconic home of the fabled working class Tory - so the Labour candidate for the 1987 General Election is run out of town, as Maggie is elected for a third and final time. She is idealised, the woman who put the cash in the overall pockets that later finds its way into the traders' pockets. Who needs services if Romford Market, and the Free Market, provides? But, as the barrow boy made good in The City finds out, the free market can take as well as give.

But this Noughties play about the 80s has plenty to say about today too. While much attention has focused on why the "left behind" post-industrial Northern towns voted for Leave and, hence, against their economic interests, little thought has been expended on why Romford voted 70% Leave or why two of the top five Leave districts were located in Essex. Maybe it was just so expected that it is not worthy of comment. This play shows exactly how "Taking Back Control" sloganeering would work with the people who revere their Iron Lady, grocer's daughter heroine. It was Maggie's backyard, now it's Farage's.

Nearly 800 years on from its founding, Romford Market survives, providing "Everything You Need In One Place". Even its website looks, paradoxically, pre-digital. But it's still there - and that's what matters.

Wimbledon Market has long gone. The creaking old Stadium where I watched speedway and the dogs whizzing round at roughly the same pace, all accompanied by the tang of fried food hanging in the air, alas no more. And so too, its carpark, where I learned to ride a motorcycle and which provided the venue for the market at which I bought the Dr Martins boots my son now wears. A new stadium is rising now - football of course... surrounded by very well appointed apartments, available off plan now, starting at £425,000.

The only people shouting the odds there will be the private security guards telling you that you're on camera, so mind how you go.

Market Boy is at the Union Theatre until 11 May.

Photo Mark Senior