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The Full Monty on stage: the boys are back in town The Full Monty on stage: the boys are back in town
(7 months later)
In a rehearsal room, tea is being made and Kit Kats eaten; people are putting on their coats to go out into the Sheffield winter. There is snow in the air. In the midst of this, a small committee is staring at a group of men wearing nothing but red thongs. They're supposed to be thongs, anyway. But one of the men gazes critically down at his package and declares, with dark, Yorkshire suspicion, "This looks more like a nappy to me." He rolls up the sides so that there is just a thin string holding up the pouch. "You want it more like this." There are murmurs of assent, the sort you get at a dull board meeting. "And this is no good: it needs to go right up the back, too." He turns, hitches the whole apparatus up and displays a fine pair of buttocks to the committee. More earnest nods of approval. The wardrobe mistress bends down, takes closeups of his crotch and bottom with her camera, and goes off to make adjustments. Nobody has cracked a smile. Stripping is a serious business around here. But then, it always has been.In a rehearsal room, tea is being made and Kit Kats eaten; people are putting on their coats to go out into the Sheffield winter. There is snow in the air. In the midst of this, a small committee is staring at a group of men wearing nothing but red thongs. They're supposed to be thongs, anyway. But one of the men gazes critically down at his package and declares, with dark, Yorkshire suspicion, "This looks more like a nappy to me." He rolls up the sides so that there is just a thin string holding up the pouch. "You want it more like this." There are murmurs of assent, the sort you get at a dull board meeting. "And this is no good: it needs to go right up the back, too." He turns, hitches the whole apparatus up and displays a fine pair of buttocks to the committee. More earnest nods of approval. The wardrobe mistress bends down, takes closeups of his crotch and bottom with her camera, and goes off to make adjustments. Nobody has cracked a smile. Stripping is a serious business around here. But then, it always has been.
Sixteen years after the release of a film about a renegade bunch of unemployed men who become – for a moment – strippers, I am back in Sheffield, once again in the grip of a recession, this time to rehearse a stage version of The Full Monty. What has changed, this time round? The recession of the late 1980s was a very visible humiliation. Cities across Britain had become the victims of botched battlefield surgery – surgery that involved the ripping up of factories, the flattening of buildings and the razing of the Victorian heritage of heavy labour.Sixteen years after the release of a film about a renegade bunch of unemployed men who become – for a moment – strippers, I am back in Sheffield, once again in the grip of a recession, this time to rehearse a stage version of The Full Monty. What has changed, this time round? The recession of the late 1980s was a very visible humiliation. Cities across Britain had become the victims of botched battlefield surgery – surgery that involved the ripping up of factories, the flattening of buildings and the razing of the Victorian heritage of heavy labour.
Few were spared the wrecking ball. I remember Sheffield then as a place of sudden, gaping holes in the middle of streets, endless piles of bricks, and the flowering of unexpected, weed-strewn car parks. A bombless blitz has left Bradford with a 15-acre hole in its centre, still, home to many bitter jokes, the odd urban fox and not much else. There was a sense when they were destroyed that the buildings themselves were being made to suffer, as part of a public shaming. Look at you, superannuated, useless relics. You refuse to modernise. This is what you deserve: annihilation. The buildings may not have felt the pain, but the people who worked in them certainly did.Few were spared the wrecking ball. I remember Sheffield then as a place of sudden, gaping holes in the middle of streets, endless piles of bricks, and the flowering of unexpected, weed-strewn car parks. A bombless blitz has left Bradford with a 15-acre hole in its centre, still, home to many bitter jokes, the odd urban fox and not much else. There was a sense when they were destroyed that the buildings themselves were being made to suffer, as part of a public shaming. Look at you, superannuated, useless relics. You refuse to modernise. This is what you deserve: annihilation. The buildings may not have felt the pain, but the people who worked in them certainly did.
In Sheffield, the tens of thousands who were dumped from the steel industry within a matter of months hadn't even considered unemployment until it swept over them. They were often in the same works as their dad, which was often the same works as their grandad. It was a given. It might have been hot, dangerous, monotonous work, but there was a scale and purpose to it. It was work that you were proud of – a concept now so outdated that it is tinged with sentimentality.In Sheffield, the tens of thousands who were dumped from the steel industry within a matter of months hadn't even considered unemployment until it swept over them. They were often in the same works as their dad, which was often the same works as their grandad. It was a given. It might have been hot, dangerous, monotonous work, but there was a scale and purpose to it. It was work that you were proud of – a concept now so outdated that it is tinged with sentimentality.
This is a very different recession. The Victorian mills that haven't been toppled have long been converted to flats, and there are few nationalised industries remaining to be sliced up to feed the private sector. This recession is insidious, creeping, full of misinformation and double-speak. Advantage is being taken of its invisibility. There is a dissonance between what we see and what we are told. The high street is picked clean of shops in front of our eyes: Comet, Clinton, HMV, Jessops, all collapsing one after the other – yet unemployment, apparently, is falling. Unlike the 1980s, there are no squatter camps, no dole queues. We're more careful with our litter. The unemployed are kept safely out of sight, at home tapping computer screens to find jobs, manoeuvred out of the statistics on phantom job programmes, jumping from one part-time job to another to pay the rent. Sheffield's Food Bank vans, I've noticed, are very clean.This is a very different recession. The Victorian mills that haven't been toppled have long been converted to flats, and there are few nationalised industries remaining to be sliced up to feed the private sector. This recession is insidious, creeping, full of misinformation and double-speak. Advantage is being taken of its invisibility. There is a dissonance between what we see and what we are told. The high street is picked clean of shops in front of our eyes: Comet, Clinton, HMV, Jessops, all collapsing one after the other – yet unemployment, apparently, is falling. Unlike the 1980s, there are no squatter camps, no dole queues. We're more careful with our litter. The unemployed are kept safely out of sight, at home tapping computer screens to find jobs, manoeuvred out of the statistics on phantom job programmes, jumping from one part-time job to another to pay the rent. Sheffield's Food Bank vans, I've noticed, are very clean.
In the years between recessions, Sheffield has had a facelift. You no longer walk out of the railway station straight into the M1 feeder road, but on to a square with fountains. The Park Hill Flats, that famously derelict experiment in "streets in the sky" living, are being renovated and look suddenly a very attractive place to live. There are open spaces, a thriving music and theatre scene. Move out of the centre, though, and things don't seem to have changed at all. If anything, they've got worse: the poverty engendered by the mass redundancies of the 1980s has taken root.In the years between recessions, Sheffield has had a facelift. You no longer walk out of the railway station straight into the M1 feeder road, but on to a square with fountains. The Park Hill Flats, that famously derelict experiment in "streets in the sky" living, are being renovated and look suddenly a very attractive place to live. There are open spaces, a thriving music and theatre scene. Move out of the centre, though, and things don't seem to have changed at all. If anything, they've got worse: the poverty engendered by the mass redundancies of the 1980s has taken root.
What hasn't changed are the people. Returning here after a long time away, I wondered whether my fondness for Sheffield folk was fanciful, a sentimental invention that had more to do with me and my life at the time I wrote the Full Monty screenplay. But within minutes of walking into a cafe, I am being regaled with the life story of a retired scaffolder at the table next to me, a giant of a man with a couple of front teeth missing – a gap that is displayed every time he laughs, which is often.What hasn't changed are the people. Returning here after a long time away, I wondered whether my fondness for Sheffield folk was fanciful, a sentimental invention that had more to do with me and my life at the time I wrote the Full Monty screenplay. But within minutes of walking into a cafe, I am being regaled with the life story of a retired scaffolder at the table next to me, a giant of a man with a couple of front teeth missing – a gap that is displayed every time he laughs, which is often.
There is something extraordinary about the people in this city, particularly the men. They are warm, funny and dry in that way of northerners – yet there is a candour, an openness that I haven't experienced in other parts of the county. You hear a lot of life stories in Sheffield, whether you ask for them or not, and a lot of noisy laughter. The worse things get, the better the jokes.There is something extraordinary about the people in this city, particularly the men. They are warm, funny and dry in that way of northerners – yet there is a candour, an openness that I haven't experienced in other parts of the county. You hear a lot of life stories in Sheffield, whether you ask for them or not, and a lot of noisy laughter. The worse things get, the better the jokes.
Years ago, it was a shock to me when the Full Monty film posters asserted its credentials as a "feel-good comedy". It seemed a strange phrase to associate with a group of characters who are dealing with the crushing loss of self-esteem that unemployment brings, as well as obesity, suicide, marital breakdown and impotence. To me, the comedy was simply the coping mechanism that got them through the day. When you haven't got a job, a joke is about the only thing that's free.Years ago, it was a shock to me when the Full Monty film posters asserted its credentials as a "feel-good comedy". It seemed a strange phrase to associate with a group of characters who are dealing with the crushing loss of self-esteem that unemployment brings, as well as obesity, suicide, marital breakdown and impotence. To me, the comedy was simply the coping mechanism that got them through the day. When you haven't got a job, a joke is about the only thing that's free.
It was for this reason the play had to start its tour here, where that peculiar mix of pain and humour is so close to the surface. Perhaps it is the associated tightrope the characters walk, between humiliation and success, that made the film so popular 16 years ago. For a movie ostensibly about strippers, it really has nothing to do with titillation. It is about being desperate enough and then brave enough to bare all.It was for this reason the play had to start its tour here, where that peculiar mix of pain and humour is so close to the surface. Perhaps it is the associated tightrope the characters walk, between humiliation and success, that made the film so popular 16 years ago. For a movie ostensibly about strippers, it really has nothing to do with titillation. It is about being desperate enough and then brave enough to bare all.
We are now only a couple of previews into the play's run, but the delighted whoops and roars from the audience as the characters finally strip have as much to do with the affirmation of hope as with the revelation of flesh. And as the economy flatlines its way from one quarter to the next, the time is right again for a bit of hope, a red thong or two, and, in case you're wondering – yes, the full monty.We are now only a couple of previews into the play's run, but the delighted whoops and roars from the audience as the characters finally strip have as much to do with the affirmation of hope as with the revelation of flesh. And as the economy flatlines its way from one quarter to the next, the time is right again for a bit of hope, a red thong or two, and, in case you're wondering – yes, the full monty.
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