Graham Cowley and Two’s Company are driven by a clear purpose: to revive forgotten plays. They have done a really good job in bringing The Cutting of the Cloth to the stage. Michael Hastings, who died in 2011, was most celebrated for his drama about the first Mrs TS Eliot, Tom and Viv, but before he took up with the Royal Court and drama, he had been an apprentice tailor. His 1973 play about the experience, only now receiving its premiere, makes Savile Row in the early 50s look like the habitat of a fascinating lost tribe, rich in arcane lingo and rituals, and under threat of extinction. Yet its repressive hierarchy can be found in almost any workplace or family. As can a tussle between old and new practices.
Hand-stitching pitted against the “new technology” of sewing on machines is the trigger of the plot, but events are minimal. The thrill is in documentary detail, marvellously realised in Tricia Thorns’s terrific production. Perry Como songs croon in the background. Alex Marker’s design is so exact that you can smell the brick walls, long benches, treadle sewing machines, string bags, loose tea and uncompromising lav. The young apprentice – the Michael Hastings character – is encouraged to sew till his fingers bleed. He is regaled with stories of apprentices who had their knees taped to the benches, where they sat cross-legged. He is cross-examined on wiggle chalk-ups. Looking on are women tailors. To avoid unwelcome advances in a mostly male world, they looked for work in pairs. So they were known as kippers.
