Girl From The North Country At Sheffield Theatres Review

Reviewed by J Wright

This week at The Lyceum Theatre in Sheffield you can journey back in time to the winter of 1934 in the time of The Great Depression. A group of peoples lives collide in a run down guesthouse in Duluth, Minnesota, by the shores of Lake Superior. The guesthouse is a crossroads, a place to make big choices, to see where life might take them and if each decision is better than the last. It’s a time of wanting, of need.

Despite The Depression the characters are all wanting in other ways, Nick is aware his wife is ill and money is tight. Marianne knows time is running out. Mrs Neilsen is waiting on her money so she might begin again. Dr Walker knows of the difficulties they all face and yet the one who sees the most and speaks with the greatest honesty is Elizabeth, Nick’s wife. As she faces a mental decline she perceives the lives around her with clarity and speaks from the heart, which causes problems for the characters at times and yet also brings light relief to the audience. As an actor I can only imagine Frances McNamee is having a wonderful time characterising this fascinating character as well as singing with gusto.

The music of Bob Dylan is threaded through the show to evoke the feelings of each intersecting story and the events which take place. You’ll recognise such known hits as Hurricane, Like A Rolling Stone and Forever Young amongst the 20 or so tracks performed and details some of his back catalogue to 1963 Girl From The North Country and right up to 2012 Duquesne Whistle which fit right in with the theme of the time.

This is a relatively new show in the history of theatre and you’d be forgiven if you didn’t know about it but it promises to become a classic with recognition on Broadway and in the West End, now on tour you can seize the opportunity to see the show more locally.

There are some outstanding voices illustrating Dylan’s songs in ways you might never have heard before. I loved to hear Joshua C Jackson as Joe Scott, Frances McNamee as Elizabeth Laine and Eve Norris as Katherine Draper.
It’s rare I would write about lighting but in this case it is a worthy mention, the lighting design is evocative and adds more dimensions than light and shadow, it brings something more, a feeling of the time and the difficulties of it.
Girl From The North Country as a show and that separately the cast within has been nominated for multiple awards and won a significant amount too. It’s also reported that Bob Dylan anonymously saw the show and spoke of it bringing him to tears.

It’s a relatively long production of 2 hours and 30 minutes and with an interval and the atmosphere is mostly mellow, there are few big highs or lows. There’s also some unsuitable language for children so this show is definitely one for the adults. After all it is more mature adults who will recognise most of Dylan’s back catalogue and I could hear a number of audience members around me singing along with the cast.

I always like to remind audience members that Sheffield Theatres have an arrangement with Q Park (or the Cheesegrater as we know it locally) and you can benefit from discount parking by picking up a ticket at the box office.
Overall this is a slow paced production, intermittently illustrated with mellow and emotional music and it all takes place in a relatively short time period. The production quality is high and I have a feeling this will hang around international theatres for some years yet.

The show is on from Tuesday 17th January – Saturday 21st January 2023. 

Tickets cost from £20.00

You can buy tickets here or call the box office on 0114 2496000.

Rating: 4/5