Boston Comes to Beverley

Following his tremendous directorial debut last year with ‘The Night Season’, ERT’s artistic director Adrian Rawlins (currently on our TV screens in ‘Girlfriends’ and ‘Hard Sun’) is donning his director’s hat again for the next in-house production ‘Good People’.

Written by Pulitzer prize winning playwright David Lindsay-Abaire and awarded the 2011 New York Drama Critics Circle Award for Best Play, it is set in South Boston, USA.

The story follows fiery middle-aged, single-mother Margie Walsh who is down on her luck. Fired from her job at the dollar store, under threat of being kicked out by her landlady, Margie’s only hope seems to be a good win at the Bingo. Hearing that a high school boyfriend has made good as a doctor and is back in town, Margie takes her chance to see if he can throw her a lifeline. Speaking of his choice of play, director Rawlins says: “I was particularly drawn to Good People because of Lindsay-Abaire’s brilliant and often hilarious writing and the complexity of character he creates.

“Unlike George Bailey in our Christmas production of It's a Wonderful Life, Margie Walsh is not the classic hero. Though you root for her to get the break she so desperately needs, at times she seems to cross the line of what we might consider acceptable and so our sympathy may waver. In other words, she is a flawed human being. She keeps us guessing.”

Yorkshire-born actress Joy Brook (Emmerdale, The Railway Children, The Bill) will take on the role of sharp-tongued Margie. Janet Prince - who thrilled audiences at ERT as the iconic Miss Havisham in Great Expectations - plays raucous landlady Dottie. Completing the cast, Nada Sharp plays Margie’s best friend Jean - the ‘Mouthie from Southie’, Michael Kinsey plays Bingo-loving Stevie, and Rory Murray is Mike, the old flame who has moved to a more affluent area of Boston with his younger wife Kate, played by Misha Duncan-Barry.

Rawlins says: “It’s a fabulous collection of characters who we constantly reappraise throughout the play. Old wounds are opened, and secrets revealed. Will they find the resolve and resourcefulness to pull through? Or, is life like a game of Bingo - down to pure luck? You’ll just have to come and see Good People to find out!” Good People runs from 1st to 24th March 2018 at ERT. Tickets: www.eastridingtheatre.co.uk or Box Office: 01482 874050.