Barstow’s drama takes to the stage – without any sinks

After the play he wryly told me that I shouldn’t be writing about women in their 60s since I was only 32 – he was probably right. I knew his work mainly through the 1962 film of A Kind Of Loving starring Alan Bates. Its black and white images had stayed with me over time, as had the bleak vision of Yorkshire in the 60s, though, I have to say that it didn’t entirely chime with my own upbringing on a council house estate in Upton at around the same, but perhaps I was seeing life then through a child’s eyes?

When the prospect of staging the novel came to mind I began to research the film and discovered that almost none of it was shot in West Yorkshire, and certainly the accents didn’t ring authentically true to my ear.

This is often the case with feature films, especially when packaging and star led vehicles are the only way to get the project off the ground. I was to experience similar constraints when I tried to make Up’n’Under in Hull 10 years later.

As a believer that theatre should respond to its natural habitat I had always pondered whether a stage version of the novel could remain more faithful to the book in both flavour and tone than the film; which is undeniably a classic of its genre.

However, I had always felt that the phrase, “kitchen sink drama” misrepresented novels of this time – much of A Kind Of Loving takes place in places far removed from the kitchen sink. A rehearsed reading was arranged at the Flock to Ossett festival last year and my adaptation was well received by an audience of local folk and members of Barstow’s family. In line with what I had been doing at Hull Truck for a quarter of a century, local actors did the reading, and unlike the film I was able to retain much of Barstow’s wry and funny observations of Vic’s predicament through his narration.

His prose is especially sharp, and this gives Vic a delicate sense of his own ridiculousness from time to time. With an Arts Council grant we began to rehearse. I assumed work on the script was complete. As we put the play on its feet I realised that we had far too much narrative and the first act was very long indeed. It was tough editing back such finely tuned prose. Now, I have pruned and edited the book to bring the stage production to life.

My instinct was to focus on the fascination Vic and Ingrid have for each other, which is driven by physical attraction and which develops into a kind of loving. I was keen to serve the book as best as I could without veering into sub stories and bleaching out the well observed colour.

I always thought the central story had the feeling of a musical – more Adam and Eve than Romeo and Juliet – and while this isn’t a musical, music plays a very big part. It was also significant in Barstow’s life as far as I understand and it’s telling that Vic Brown leaves the draughtsman’s shop at Whittakers to run Mr Van Huyten’s music shop.

What great material for a good night in the theatre, an approximation of love, physical satisfaction and great music, I hope A Kind Of Loving on stage is as distinctive as the novel and the film, but wholly theatrically without a kitchen sink in sight.

Wakefield Theatre Royal, March 13–23. 01924 211311.