Published in The Press, May 2007:

It’s been 11 years since the York Mystery Plays were staged at the Theatre Royal and now they’re back, albeit as noises off, in The York Realist.

It’s the 1963 Mystery Plays, rather than the 1996 ones, that form the background to this not-so-everyday story of country folk, a time when jeans, like washing machines, were thrillingly modern, holidays in Spain were the last word in luxury and homosexual acts between consenting adults were still illegal.

Surprisingly, perhaps, it is George, the square-set farm-worker, rather than John (Paul Toy) the Metropolitan luvvie who has come up to help direct the plays, who is the more confident partner in this mismatched rural romance, revived following its acclaimed Yorkshire premiere last October at Friargate Theatre by York Settlement Players.

George – a remarkably assured performance by newcomer Philip Wilkinson – is the real deal; a man who can calve a cow, lay hedges and play an authentically rough Roman soldier, to his mother’s disapproval (‘You were very cruel in the crucifixion’).

Times are on the turn, regional accents are all the rage and with his rude talent George could be a success. That would mean uprooting to London, though, and even if there is a motorway now, leaving home and all it represents isn’t that easy.

Set in the cottage outside York where George lives with this ailing mother (a wonderfully naturalistic Doreen Gurrey), The York Realist is less aggressively ‘kitchen sink’, more homely ‘kitchen range’; a gentle, touching and frequently funny play with echoes of TV’s ‘Royle Family’ in the family’s round-the-table ruminations (‘God had a good voice. Very clear.’).

Gangly youth Jack (Andy Pilliner) could be the spit of ‘our Antony’, and is equally put-upon, and the setting has the same open-door intimacy, with neighbour Doreen popping round with pies and shrewish daughter Barbara (Beverley Chapman) and her hen-pecked husband Arthur (Keir Brown) topping up their tea levels from Mother’s ever-present pot.

But this is more than about cutting apron strings. An unspoken, multi-layered family complicity, given neat emphasis by director Paul Osborne’s overlapping of the past and present, suggests the ties that bind run as deep for George as for the original York Realist, the writer of those 15<sup>th</sup>-century wagon plays who knew what Passion really meant.

Kate Lock