TEN TINY FINGERS, NINE TINY TOES
by Sue Townsend

Performed by final year Drama students
of St Martin's College, Lancaster
at The Dukes, Moor Lane, Lancaster
Wednesday 19 to Saturday 22 January 2005

In two minds …

Ten Tiny Fingers and Nine Tiny Toes, which dates from 1986, is certainly an interesting play. It has not dated, it also raises some very important, contemporary issues, and can generate a range of different responses. So it was a very interesting experience to go and see it with a colleague whose approach to theatre, the play's underlying themes and this particular production turned out to be notably different from my own views.

Comic writer Sue Townsend (Adrian Mole et al) shows in this play that there is a serious side to her work. Never write off a writer whose work seems to be mainly funny – often the sharpest barbs lie behind the most appealing façades. Townsend spoke for herself in the programme about the nature of her work:

"This play is about the fierce and the overpowering love that most women feel for their children both born and unborn. It is set in the future in a world where babies are bought and sold and even advertised by a totalitarian government. The play is a modern melodrama and teeters on a dangerous tightrope of laughter and tears.

I would like to dedicate this play to all imperfect babies and all imperfect adults. As Lucinda says in the play, ‘What's a missing toe?''

Fine so far – my colleague and I were both agreed on the relevance of the issues that the play presents. It is in fact a complex piece which tackles not only issues of disability, sexuality and class and, of course, political control over human rights. Whilst my colleague was moved to tears (always the highest compliment anyone can pay to both the play and the production), I was left wondering whether the stage was really Townsend's métier. What lights one fire doesn't necessarily set the whole street ablaze.

We were agreed on some aspects of the performance. Two actors stood out as extremely competent at their craft. Abigail Lumb was the bossy, brassy Grade 3 (white, middle-management) whose baby is diagnosed as ‘imperfect', and showed a commanding bourgeois (and rather unpleasant) presence with a clear, fine voice to match. James Eagleton played the down-trodden, persecuted Grade 5 (menial working class, few ‘privileges') with a passionate tenderness that exuded powerfully from his every inch. He has a body language and innate control to envy.

All other parts were commendably played, but one – the Priest/Police Officer/Judge – was woefully miscast because the roles did not match the actor's dramatic range/register. The production and direction ‘in the round' by Neil McLoughlin and Michelle Steward was successful and imaginative, though the scene changes seemed to take longer than necessary. Otherwise the overall pace was finely judged and dramatically poised.

In all, though, this was for both of us a successful performance of a complex play. Maybe a man and a woman will see certain issues from different perspectives, and I reckon that there were as many impressions and reactions taken away that night as there were members of the audience.

A brave choice that paid off.

Copyright © 27 January 2005 Michael Nunn