‘The Greatest Play in the History of the World’ is obviously not the greatest play in the history of the world, and yes, it absolutely does make that joke itself.
It is quite nice though, largely thanks to the irresistibly ebullient delivery of performer Julie Hesmondhaigh – erstwhile ‘Corrie’ star and regular at Manchester’s Royal Exchange, which produces the play, written by Hesmondhaigh’s husband Ian Kershaw.
It’s an unlikely yarn, set in the dead of night on the usually bustling Preston Road. Hesmondhaigh stands in front of a series of shelves, holding numerous boxes of shoes, several of which she takes out and carefully places on the ground to represent the road’s various denizens. She also charmingly solicits various audience members to contribute their footwear to the cause (don’t sit on the front row if you have a hole in your socks).
And with a great, vaulting smile, Hesmondhaigh sets about sketching the warm, fantastical story of stay-at-home ‘words’ nerd Tom, Sara, the ‘numbers’ nerd who lives opposite him, and the Forshaws, elderly neighbours who are building… something in their garden. Tied around all this is a riff on the golden record on the Voyager spacecraft, and some lightly existential pondering on what of us we choose to live on after us.
It is very winsome, mostly because of the effusiveness with which its star attacks it: it feels like a genuine pleasure to Hesmondhaigh to be performing this piece, like she’d be up for doing it again, immediately after, if only they’d let her.
Raz Shaw’s production is gorgeously wrought in almost every respect, but in the final analysis Kershaw’s script did ultimately test the levels of twee I was able to tolerate. Playing at the Traverse, comparisons to Daniel Kitson’s storytelling shows feel inevitable, and ‘The Greatest Play…’ comes out second best, lighter and sweeter and less daring.
Nonetheless: in an extremely serious Traverse 2 line-up, ‘The Greatest Play…’ is a welcome ray of sunshine.
