The underpinning theme of this coming-of-age piece seems to be the perennial wish of every child, best expressed by Peter Pan, to ‘never grow up’. Sunny Side‘s writer, Anna Holmes, set out to write about men’s mental health and the suicide ‘epidemic’ she witnessed in her home place, the ironically dubbed ‘Happy Valley’. “We live in a society that is starving men of touch” claims Holmes and yet… and yet, we see K, the young man whose story this is, touched again and again. By his best mate since childhood – a bear hug greeting as the two reunite when Danny returns home from Uni for the hols. By his girlfriend, (Sophie Thomas) who runs through wheat fields hand in hand with K, then slips into his room and stays the night, locked in warm and passionate embrace – a delicate rendering of first-time sexual exploration. But something is missing.
The first half of this ambitious Dance-Theatre piece brilliantly evokes K’s dreary life in a grim home, his daily grind in a dead-end labouring job, the relentless bickering of his parents. Soul Roberts immaculately portrays his broken inner life and reminded me of the anthem “Tubthumping” by fellow Northerners, Chumbawumba, ‘I get knocked down but I get up again’ and K does, again and again. He is wonderfully supported by an outstanding lighting design from Barnaby Booth, enmeshed with digital projections from Aaron Howell, both brilliantly conveying K’s inner life, in light and image, better than mere words ever could. His nostalgic childhood memories, his sense of loss, drowning in anhedonia, flooded with longing for times past. K is lost and lonely and cannot find a pathway into his adult life.
He’s briefly joyous when reunited with Danny, vividly played by Ed Mitchell, who brings a fresh and youthful energy to the stage, brimming with life and optimism, clearly a carefree boy with a bright future ahead of him. It’s a tale as old as time – Danny has escaped the dead-end town and now can only handle it in small doses. K becomes painfully aware of their divergent paths and the growing gulf between them when he visits Danny at Manchester Uni – ‘Mind The Gap’ repeated in a neat double entendre.
The versatile Sophie Thomas returns as one of Danny’s Uni friends and delivers an entirely different character – a street-smart, savvy raver as opposed to K’s sweet, playful, child-like girlfriend. The three rave on all night long, but K can’t take much more. He falls again and again, and Danny drags him up again and again. But there is an inevitability as to what comes next. The lighting fades, we descend to murky, watery darkness and K finally drowns in despair.
I was hugely impressed by the talents of the three young Dance Artists in this piece. They have amazing chemistry and powerfully communicated K’s story. It’s an important story to tell, that of men’s mental health and our failure to address it. I’m not entirely convinced that Sunny Side serves that story well. The talents of all those involved are undeniable, but I have a few quibbles with the text, riddled with a number of tired cliches of the ‘It’s grim up North’ variety. As a Mancunian, I experienced these cliches over 40 years ago and can recall a friend visiting me from ‘down South’, explaining to my housemate that she was a well-balanced Northerner – “I’ve got a chip on each shoulder”. Oh, how we laughed. There is a singular lack of humour in Anna Holmes’ text and this, coupled with the flat, Kae Tempest-style delivery of the recorded voices, becomes somewhat oppressive. One could argue that this suits the theme of the piece, but I found myself strangely unmoved by the end, wondering what conclusions the author intended the audience to reach. There are hints in the final speech – the absent father, the lack of opportunity, the broken-town Thatcherite legacy but the piece offers very little in terms of the contemporary issues facing young men – the influence of Andrew Tate and rape culture, the intolerable social media pressure to be fitter and hotter, the sense of inequality and loss of status as the patriarchy collapses and power and control has to be shared with girls and women. Despite the content feeling a little dated, Sunny Side is a wonderful production and well worth seeing, provoking heated debate all the way home, so perhaps achieving what Anna Holmes and Northern Rascals set out to do – to get us all talking about men’s mental health. Go see it and find out for yourself!
Review by Janette Eddisford
Sunny Side centres around K as he navigates the tumultuous adolescent journey whilst combatting his personal and social development after the world has been on pause. Set in an unspecified Northern English town, K is increasingly losing his sense of identity and lacks emotional support in the once familiar world around him. In this ever-changing and uncertain environment, K travels through the past, present and future to reconnect.
Cast: Soul Roberts, Sophie Thomas, Ed Mitchell
Co-Artistic Directors – Anna Holmes, Sam Ford
Acting Coach/Dramaturg – Geoffrey Colman
Set Designer – Caitlin Mawhinney
Lighting Designer – Barnaby Booth
Digital Designer – Aaron Howl
Production Manager – Adam Goode
Composer – Wilfrid Kimber
SUNNY SIDE
The Place, 8 April 2025
UK tour continues to 18 June 2025
