Spend Spend Spend: this musical buzzes with Northern humour and heartfelt poignancy
After the debacle of cancelling the entire five week run of its revisionist A Midsummer Night’s Dream back in September – reportedly in a dispute over references to pro-Palestinian and trans rights – this coruscating musical about the tragic life of 1960s pools winner Viv Nicholson must surely rejuvenate the Royal Exchange’s spirits and banish any lingering winter blues.
A young, working class, Yorkshire blonde whose husband won the football pools in 1961 and who became famous for squandering their fortune in the space of only four years before being officially declared bankrupt, Nicholson is for many a sobering warning of being as rich as Croesus yet possessing scant fiscal acumen. A touchstone of British popular culture, her elegiac story was tabloid news fodder and subsequently spawned a BBC TV drama. Nicholson’s life has all the dramatic elements of Greek tragedy.
Inspired by her autobiography, this 1998 musical buzzes with salacious Northern humour and heartfelt poignancy, despite the pathos of its protagonist’s increasingly parlous financial plight.
Told in flashbacks, the ostentatious, champagne-quaffing lifestyle, the myriad purchases (including a pink Cadillac, fur coats, jewellery and foreign holidays) and Nicholson’s swift, self-destructive descent into alcoholism and bankruptcy are all articulated with great emotional range by Rose Galbraith and Rachel Leskovac.
Galbraith is brilliant as a pugnacious younger Viv while Leskovac – who was nominated for an Olivier for that role in the original London production – here plays the older Viv, subtly evoking the sense of acute loneliness, alienation and profound emptiness which accompanies Nicholson’s fall of Icaran proportions.
While the old adage about a fool and his money doubtless applies, Viv discerns the fair-weather friends her new wealth attracts, and the marital abuse she suffers at the hands of later husbands, as well as her becoming a Jehovah’s Witness, are movingly depicted.
Directed with ebullience by Josh Seymour and with music and ribald lyrics by Steve Brown and Justin Greene, Alex James-Hatton brings youthful vigour as her husband Keith. With the show’s title derived from Nicholson’s own foolhardy declaration of intent with her winnings, the songs sensitively juxtapose mirth and melancholy, while the energetic ensemble cast’s imaginative choreography makes full use of the in-the-round staging.
At a time of year when we spend money like water, seduced by tantalising Black Friday deals, this cautionary tale - a modern parable of the debilitating mental and physical toll wealth can exact - is a thought-provoking, jocose and highly enjoyable, albeit salutary lesson. Powerful, chastening and yet defiantly upbeat, this is a Yuletide treat - and one which has the potential to convert even the most seasoned profligate.
Until January 11th 2025; royalexchange.co.uk