Are we “trapped in separate echo chambers” and can the divides be bridged? Matthew Greenhough’s (almost) new solo show for Wound Up Theatre asks that question through the tale of two working-class Sheffield school friends growing up and apart. Greeny (a name that hints at autobiography) migrates to London and works in the media. Stevo stays home, marooned in the cognitive dissonance between his dead-end life and the phrase “white privilege”, prey to Tommy Robinson’s opinions about the world.
Greenhough hops back and forth through time as he narrates their stories, from the occasion they nicked a Dead Kennedys LP from the record shop, to their punk tour of Europe, to the day that – now drifting apart – Stevo visits Greeny in London for reasons he has cause to conceal. Greenhough’s script is full of blunt, bathetic northern comedy, and he performs it as if he’s plugged into the mains. Steven Wright on trumpet punctuates with punk tracks given a jazz makeover.
It’s a compelling tale, which ends abruptly having said little new about the forces driving “the liberal elite” and “the left behind” apart. The show plays into those stereotypes, with Greeny wondering “Why can’t they all be more tolerant – like I am?”, and Stevo calling Londoners “affluent twats”. But it’s acute on how far-right politics rebranded as “the new punk”, how they channel insurrectionist energy that might be – and once was – channelled elsewhere.
The show concludes with a plea for less name-calling and more mutual sympathy, which is both hard to disagree with and a little banal. But it’s a lively ride to get there, and Greenhough sells the story with panache.
At Pleasance Courtyard, Edinburgh, until 26 August.
