FOUR actor-musicians are performing two brand new productions at 150 venues through spring to early autumn as Marsden's Mikron Theatre Company take to England's waterways in their narrowboat Tyseley.
Rather than Tyseley and canals, however, the press night for In At The Deep took place in the RNLI Scarborough Lifeboat Station against the backdrop of the £2.2 million Scarborough Shannon Class L lifeboat, to the sound of the North Sea waves beyond. Kate Morton's set design could not have been better complemented, although the cast would have benefited from higher platforms to lift them to the audience's eye level.
Add the £1.5 million Shannon Launch and Recovery (SLAR) that facilitates the lifeboat's descent to the waters, and these new bits of kit that arrived at Scarborough's West Pier on Foreshore Road last December re-emphasise that the equipment may change, but the methods of rescue remain the same as the volunteer lifeboat crew's "shouts" to brave the storms.
Laurence Peacock's new commission for Mikron dives into 200 years of saving lives, combining a history lesson on the RNLI's past with a story of a lifeboat station at Skipwick being under threat of closure unless more volunteers are recruited. The divorced martinet coxwain Darren (company stalwart James McLean) is too autocratic, too stubborn and too coldly fastidious ("Tea and coffee at the back; make sure you don't spill it," he even scalds the audience at the interval), putting off any potential recruits with his surliness.
His relationship with his son Billy (Craig Anderson) has broken down, on the one hand forcing him to follow in his footsteps; on the other, constantly putting him down.
Craig Anderson's Billy, James McLean's Darren and Claire-Marie Seddon's Shannon at peril in In At The Deep End. Picture: Peter Boyd Photography
His scepticism of buoyant-as-a-lifebelt probationary recruit Shannon (Claire-Marie Seddon) soon makes way for favouritism over his son, while his sour temper is water off a gull's back to the station's long-serving fundraising queen, Hazel (Rose McPhilemy), who is on a crusade to keep everything afloat.
Peacock's first half is too heavy on history, too light on drama, but the second half comes to the rescue with much better storytelling, more humour and friction with purpose, plus a faster pace to accompany daring deeds on the seas and the touching resolution to a son and father at war. The real reason for the coxwain's demeanour is a moving testament to the human cost of the RNLI's work.
In peril of drowning under too much exposition at first, Stefan Escreet's cast battles through the storms to ride a crest of a wave by the finale, aided no end by the wonderfully witty lyrics and sprightly compositions of musical director Rebekah Hughes, especially for The Lifeboat Inventor's Club and Strong Arms. The cast's singing and playing skills are a constant delight, not least the northern blasts of brass, and if In At The Deep End could still be sharpened, Mikron make you appreciate all the more the RNLI, "the charity without parity".
Mikron Theatre Company's In At The Deep End is on tour until October 21. For tour dates for In At The Deep End and Mikron's second show, Best Foot Forward, visit mikron.org.uk
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