There are shades of King Lear and The Taming of the Shrew in Harold Brighouse’s 1916 comedy which is as well made and comfortable as a stout pair of boots. Prosperous Salford bootmaker Henry Hobson (Martin Shaw) is a widower with three daughters. It’s 1880, change is in the air and Hobson, a man who stands for middle-class Victorian values, doesn’t like it one bit when his daughters – who work unwaged for him in the shop and do all the housework – get what he calls “uppity”.
Younger daughters Vickey (Gabrielle Dempsey) and Alice (Florence Hall) have beaus they would like to marry, but Hobson is too mean to give them the dowry they need, and he has no intention of letting his eldest daughter, Maggie (Naomi Frederick), slip through his fingers. He might call her an “old maid”, but even the lightly sozzled Hobson knows she’s the real brains behind the business. But Maggie has other ideas for her future and they include bootmaker Willie Mossop (Bryan Dick), who may lack education and confidence but knows how to turn out a fine pair of boots fit for the carriage trade.
Inevitably it creaks, but Hobson’s Choice was way ahead of its time, and Jonathan Church’s revival, designed in loving detail by Simon Higlett, often makes it look pretty sprightly while acknowledging its handsome period features. It is a sly old thing in its explorations of class, aspiration and the distinctions between trade and business, particularly in the later stages, when Vickey and Alice’s snobbishness come to the fore.
Yet the play needs disciplined performances so it doesn’t descend into lovable cosiness. It gets a knockout deadpan comic turn from Dick, as a man being unwillingly pulled up by his bootstraps. There is a brave performance, too, from Frederick, who in refusing to play Maggie for sympathy makes us root for her all the more.
• At Milton Keynes theatre until 12 March. Box office: 0844 871 7615. Then touring until 16 April.
