Four star review of Elmet at Loading Bay, Bradford

Writer-director Javaad Alipoor’s powerful adaptation of Fiona Mozley’s gripping 2017 novel Elmet wisely doesn’t try to hide its literary origins – the storytelling is fairly evenly divided between narrative dramatic action and direct address to the audience by one or more of the principal characters.

As in Mozley’s book, the play, commissioned by Bradford 2025, tells the story of teenage brother and sister Daniel (LJ Parkinson) and Cathy (Jennifer Jackson) who live off-grid in a copse somewhere in the West Riding with their father John Smythe, referred to as Daddy. As written he is a huge character – physically and terms of the shadow he casts – and Alipoor’s decision to keep him entirely off stage and only referred to, makes a lot of sense. Daddy is a complicated, flawed figure – a good father who takes care of his children as best he can but earns money through dubious means including occasionally as a bare-knuckle fighter.

The children are often left to fend for themselves and have no formal education but a neighbour Vivian (Gabriella Schmidt) helps out with Daniel’s reading – he is keen to learn, while Cathy, intense, feisty and independent, does not want to be contained. This small family, who understand nature and get along with it, are however at the mercy of unpleasant local landlord and landowner Mr Price (Sean Jackson) and his odious son Charlie (Tom Varey). Capitalism, greed, exploitation, misogyny and violence are the constant challenges the Smythes have to face. It is clear at the outset that this story is not going to end well.

One of the production’s undoubted highlights is the specially composed live music from The Unthanks who perform from a platform above the stage. Their haunting folk songs, neatly incorporated into the narrative, lend the story a beautiful mythic quality. Raw, visceral and arresting, this is drama that, like its unseen central character, certainly packs a punch. In terms of its emotional impact, it is a slow-burn. It is the kind of production that throws up complex questions and leaves lingering images long after the audience has left the auditorium.