Light Falls at the Royal Exchange Theatre
Production photo by Manuel Harlan
At the end of October, Mr Monkey went to the Royal Exchange for the press night of
Light Falls, a new play by Simon Stephen with music by Jarvis Cocker.
Light Falls starts with a woman dying of a subarachnoid haemorrhage in the Heaton Moor Road Co-Op, then explores what her family - husband, two daughters, one son, all with problems of some sort - are doing while she is dying. In the case of her most troubled daughter this includes being visited by the mother's spirit; the other children meet women who look like her.
This is a very Northern play, peppered with references to Northern towns. There's even a song, the
Hymn of the North which is both eerie and uplifting. Parts of it are side-splittingly funny, and parts of it are gut-wrenching serious. It is, largely, about grief, after all.
Mr Monkey thought it was a great play, but the recently bereaved should take extra tissues with them.
This production runs until 16th November.
