TheCutting of the Cloth
By Michael Hastings
Southwark Playhouse
Director – Tricia Thorns
Set designer – Alex Marker
Lighting Designer – Neill Brinkworth
Costume designer – Emily Stuart
Sound Designer – Dominic Bilkey
Stage Manger – Linda Hapgood
Deputy Stage Manager – Claire Litton
Producer – Graham Cowley
Cast: Alexis Caley, Andy de La Tour, Paul Rider, James El-Sharawy, Abigail Thaw.
The work-room of a Savile Row tailors, 1953. Two master craftsmen at daggers drawn: Polish-born Spijak insists that nothing can beat the excellence of a hand-sewn suit, while Eric uses his machine to work at twice the speed and earn twice the money. Sparks fly as each fights his own corner with biting wit and vicious humour. Into this battleground steps Maurice, a teenager at the very start of his apprenticeship. Will he survive the gruelling training to become a master tailor? Or will he, as Spijak’s daughter urges him to, escape?
**** Fours Stars – The Financial Times
**** Four Stars – The Evening Standard
**** Four Stars – The Public Reviews
'Tricia Thorns’s production and Alex Marker’s design, however, are immaculate in their detail.'
Michael Billington – The Guardian
'Alex Marker's excellent set perfectly recreates the tailors' basement, complete with treadle sewing machines, hissing irons, flashing scissors and spools of thread…'
Sarah Hemming – The Financial Times
'There’s some strong comic playing from the cast and Alex Marker’s set is lovingly cluttered, a visual approach which complements the language of the play, dense as it is with the terminology of tailors.'
Natasha Tripney – The Stage
'Discovered by Two’s Company, it is sensitively directed by Tricia Thorns on Alex Marker’s set, which is so realistic you can almost feel the loose threads tickle your nose.'
Aleks Sierz – The Arts Desk
'The late Michael Hastings wrote this play in 1973. Tricia Thorn’s beautifully staged, finely acted production makes one amazed that it has never before been staged and could have lain in a drawer forgotten, even though listed in reference books.'
'It is a beautiful play given a production that couldn’t be bettered. It is moving, almost tragic and also very, very funny. It deserves to be seen much more widely but catch it now while you can.'
Howard Loxton – British Theatre Guide
'The real joy of director Tricia Thorn’s production is the care she has taken to depict the art of tailoring in 1950s London. Alex Marker’s set hums with industry -- steamers hiss, sewing machines whirr, and cloth is ripped, sewn and hammered within an inch of its life.'
Miriam Gillinson – Time Out
'The play is supported by the loveliest set I’ve seen at Southwark Playhouse, with three big workbenches strewn with offcuts, steaming irons, and blinking fluorescents above.'
David Ralf – Exeunt
'Alex Marker’s set design provides a wealth of convincing visual detail, complemented by the sizzle of the iron, the treadle of the sewing machine and by plenty of Savile Row expressions.'
Jon Wainwright - The Public Reviews
'Alex Marker’s set is so vivid and detailed that, sitting three rows back, I half expected to be taken to task for slacking.'
Stephen Bates – The Beast's Pen (Blog)