Robert Tanitch reviews Good People at Hampstead Theatre, London, NW3
Some people, born on the wrong side of the tracks, stay there and never get out. David Lindsay-Abaire’s much praised American play is about class and social mobility in South Boston during the present financial crisis. Well acted, and well directed by Jonathan Kent, it much improves during the second act.
A middle-aged, working-class, single mother (Imelda Staunton), with a grown-up mentally challenged daughter who needs constant surveillance, has just got the sack again. She has no money to pay the rent and is liable to be put on the street by her mean landlady (June Watson).
Some people succeed. Some people don’t. Some people are lucky. Some people are not. An ex-boy friend (Lloyd Owen), whom she hasn’t seen for 30 years, got lucky. He is a highly successful fertility doctor. He has a beautiful, expensive home. She does not. He has a beautiful, intelligent wife (Angela Coulby). She has two vulgar friends with whom she plays bingo.
Imelda Staunton (memorable as Vera Drake, the backstreet abortionist) is excellent as the woman who just wants a job and, in her desperate struggle to survive, fights dirty. It’s so much easier to be good if you are rich. Audiences, who think they know where David Lindsay-Abaire is taking them, are in for an even bigger shock than the one they expect.
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