Up n Under Hull Truck Theatre 17th July By Nick Quantrill

This special production of Up N Under is being staged to celebrate twenty years of John Godber productions at Hull Truck. As Godber's Olivier Award winner it's only right this should be the chosen play as well as it being an opportunity to reclaim its reputation back after the sheer awfulness of the film it spawned. It's truly staggering to learn that the theatre has premiered 43 Godber plays. It's one in the eye for those who say that nothing ever happens in Hull!

The story revolves around a bet on a rugby league match. Our hero, Arthur, drawn into the situation by some hilariously macho nonsense, has to coach a team chosen by Reg, coach of local top dogs The Cobbler's Arms. Naturally Reg chooses a team that has experienced less success than most of England's national sports teams..combined. Reg chooses The Wheatsheaf Arms. The story follows Arthur's attempts to kick this ragged bunch of misfits into some kind of shape. It's clearly going to be a difficult task. Anybody who has played amateur sport will probably be cringing inwardly at these scenes.

Training for The Wheatsheaf Arms consists of little more than trading banter in the changing room and exercising their arms lifting pints in the pub. These are the kind of set-pieces that explain why John Godber is so good at what he does. You can't help but laugh at the comedy, but at the same time you're aware it's also functioning as social comment.

As training goes from bad worse, Arthur enlists the help of fitness guru, Hazel, which certainly helps to inspire the players to greater heights, or at least turn up for training. As the big game against The Cobbler's Arms draws ever closer the team are transformed into a lean, mean, rugby league playing team who fear nobody. The big day arrives for Arthur and his team and the match is recreated brilliantly on stage. The use of different colours on the front and backs of the shirts is particularly inspired and makes the spectacle especially pleasing.

As the game progresses, and you've guessed correctly, it's a close one, the match hinges on the last kick of the game. If Arthur kicks the penalty successfully, the bet will be won and more importantly, the characters will win back some pride and self-respect. To find out whether or not the kick sales over the bar in a Beckhamesque fashion, you'll have to go and see for yourself.

The one criticism of the production is that although it thoroughly entertains and makes you laugh in all the right places, it was difficult to really care about the characters. Godber is usually so good at creating underdog characters that you can't help but root for. This didn't really come over very well in this production. Rather than being character driven it felt very much action driven with much of the background being implied. With the exception of Hazel and Frank who had both been recently divorced, little was really known about the characters.

Without doubt the theatre is much more enjoyable than watching television. After all, you can't see drama like this on Big Brother. Sure, it's a little more expensive than the cinema but you're not required to watch computer-generated graphics that merely require its audience to switch off their brains as they enter the building. All the actors were superb throughout and handled the scenery and character changes faultlessly. The use of a narrator to keep the story moving was a device that worked especially well. Although maybe not John Godber's finest, it was still highly pleasurable to spend another evening in the company of his work.

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