THEATRE REVIEW: Manpower

After running for two years, Man Power has most likely never been more relevant than right at this very moment. With Brexit completely up in the air, as well as discussions of masculinity taking centre stage since the birth of the #MeToo movement, Two Destination Language have created a most pertinent piece of theatre. The play obscurely comments on the history of the Great British working man and what it means to be such a thing. Written and told by a British man and a Bulgarian woman, it is a bizarre interpretation of life in Britain that engages through comedic storytelling, the sounds of vinyl classics and DIY galore.

A man organises large tree stumps, builds the frame of a shed and sets up vinyl record after vinyl record as a narrator leads the audience over the history of the working life of the British man. The years of Thatcher, the Iraq War and the emergence of Brexit Britain are all included in this retelling by the play’s deviser Katherina Radeva, who’s character does not seem wholly well-informed on the multifaceted events that have led us to where we are today. A flaw that she puts down to confusion of the British media. Despite this, she continues on while every so often stopping to exchange a look with the plaid sporting British man, performed by the plays writer Alistair Lownie, that is building and tree stump organising behind her.

Opposites combine in the play as we are told the confused history of Britain by a Bulgarian woman while watching a British man build a shed and pile up large pieces of tree, at one point even creating a wall diving the two characters. All of this is interjected by the man’s brief inputs to the audience. Inputs regarding the grave importance of choosing the right hi-fi system, or an endless stream of cliché phrases like two wrongs don’t make a right, or the grass is always greener on the other side. These interjections by Lownie fail to effectively engage the audience and feel more like an excuse to show everyone the power of vinyl records, rather than make comment on the precariousness of Britain’s decisions of late. Despite this, Radeva’s performance makes for an entertaining piece of theatre that has the audience tittering along with the ambiguous history lesson. A lesson in which Great British men are celebrated against the other. Otherness in the shape of Polish men, while hard working and dedicated, are still not Great British men. Or that of the hipster, a comparison for the younger audience member that may have been completely lost in time up until this point. Manpower gets stuck in the middle of intelligent, funny commentary and lacklustre as it gets some things right but falls short in others. Radeva as an outsider comically remarking on the Great British man is highly commendable as she carries the entire play without dropping the high energy she starts out with. The pairing of her words with Lownie getting stuck in to his DIY in the background is quite inspired and captivating to watch. Yet the writing gets bogged down in trying to do too much to grasp the audience, when in fact it does the opposite as confusion replaces intrigue throughout Lownie’s solo interruptions. Not as clever as it strives to be, but Manpower shows snippets of promise that make it worth a watch, especially right now when its relevance could not be more apparent.