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Perceptive take on male bonding
When we were Brothers
JOHN GREEN relishes photography that unfolds a longstanding and poetic relationship with Leeds
A uncomfortably misogynistic authorial voice that sometimes seems to lack insight troubles FIONA O’CONNOR
MARY CONWAY is disappointed by a production that panders – if inadvertently – to Western prejudice against China
JOHN GREEN is fascinated by a history that excavates the enormous role played by agricultural workers in recent times
ALEX HALL recommends a book that places empirical evidence at the heart of understanding racism
A recognition that individually we are powerless both politically and socially is essential, writes GORDON PARSONS
When We Were Brothers
The Underground, Bradford
“BOYS don’t cry,” might have been an alternative title for When We Were Brothers, given could the number of times that phrase is repeated throughout the one-hour play.
In this exploration of male mental health, it’s first uttered when the local bully sits on the chest of seven-year-old Danny (Levi Payne) and it's reprised when pre-adolescent Tommo (Philip D McQuillan) is at his grandfather’s funeral and his Uncle Tommy (“a bullying prick”) jeers at him for being upset. And it’s there when the two blood brothers make a code of conduct, on the list alongside “don’t hit girls.”
Those incidents, delivered in retrospective episodes, mark the milestones in the friendship between the two boys. The thoughtful and academic mixed-race Danny escapes from working-class Bradford to London as a computer science graduate and his experiences teach him emotional intelligence while Tommo, trapped in his home town as a labourer, becomes “cold and quiet” with barely contained rage.
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