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Theatre Review Beryl takes pole position

Maxine Peake's play on a champion woman cyclist is a winner, says LYNNE WALSH

Beryl
Arcola Theatre, London

TRIUMPH over adversity, a sickly child who becomes a top athlete, a woman beating the men and a few facts about rhubarb — all in all, Beryl makes for a damn fine night out at the theatre.
 
Written by Maxine Peake, this gem tells the story of a pioneer lauded and awarded but not exactly famous.

In the current climate, where faux fame is acquired with alacrity and ease, the tale of champion cyclist Beryl Burton comes powering through, taking pole position and delighting the crowds.
 
Peake, best known for her acting portfolio but now with her writing making its mark too, read Burton’s autobiography Personal Best and envisaged it as a radio play.

She wrote it, starred in it, and later helped to adapt it as a stage piece which has played to sell-out audiences for six years.

It’s blessed with a superb ensemble cast, with Annie Kirkman playing Beryl as a youngster — all competitive zeal and pubescent gawkiness — while Jessica Duffield is the adult Beryl, cycling on through injury, fatigue and the interruption of motherhood.
 
There’s sterling support from Tom Lorcan as Beryl’s husband Charlie and Mark Conway in a range of characters and director Marieke Audsley has this fast-moving foursome of actors not only playing multiple parts — and cycling on static bikes — but engaging with the audience and cracking in-jokes.
 
“My agent told me, when I took this part, that there’d be some light cycling involved!” luvvie-whines one as he remounts his bike for another racing scene.

Another vignette with Butler’s male workmates has the versatile Kirkman — all groin-thrusting, lewd blokeishness  — enacting a clumsy stereotype questioned by fellow actors.  

Beryl is a superb choice for anyone who feels that theatre may be a bit pretentious, perhaps a little worthy, or even downright unfathomable.

Peake shines the spotlight on a woman who confounded her critics and her voice and politics resonate — a child who fails her 11-plus is not a failure and a woman can accomplish anything the men can.

And it’s a damn shame that the toffs didn’t want the working class on bikes clogging up “their” country lanes.

But the wily workers often set off singly at dawn, kitted out all in black. Sometimes, revolutionary acts come on two wheels.
 
Burton, supported by husband Charlie and followed by her daughter, also a cycling champion, broke and set world records. She spurned corporate sponsorship, doing hard graft on a rhubarb farm.

She embodied the true meaning of amateur — one who does it out of love.
 
Runs until February 8, box office: arcolatheatre.com.
 

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