I'm currently in Manchester. The last four weeks have been spent rehearsing the World Premiere of Simon Bent's adaptation of Howard Jacobsen's award winning novel The Mighty Walzer about a Jewish boy and his family growing up in Manchester in the 1950's. It's been a rare experience, working on a play with an exclusively Jewish cast - warm, funny, vocal and full of shared family stories.
"Walzer" is about Howard's Manchester of memory, with its Akiva Social Club, ping pong tables, fish and chips and Kardomah coffee bars. Father works the market "gaffs", mother and aunts mollycoddle the protagonist, Oliver, at home. The rehearsal process has reignited a collective memory of first generation immigrants encouraging their children to integrate and succeed. But always with one eye on the door.
Yet it's not just my family memories that have been stirred. Last Thursday I walked through the Arndale Centre on my way to rehearsals. It was the last day of canvassing for the Referendum and tensions were high.
I used to walk this same route to my lectures when I was a student here back in the 80's. Politics loomed large then too: the reign of Mrs Thatcher, mass unemployment, Clause 28 and the Miner's Strike. People were vocal and angry. I would walk through the Arndale Centre to be accosted by pamphleteers from all political persuasions, all wanting to win new converts to their cause through political debate. Those were difficult times, but I never saw any violence.
This last day of the Referendum campaign was tense. At one point I saw a man in a wheelchair and wearing a large Remain badge, confront a table of "Leave" men. They were screaming in each other's faces. The man in the wheelchair started jabbing one of the Leave men. It became heated, specks of spittle foamed out of mouths. At one point the man in the wheelchair nearly got overturned. That was really ugly.
Would the Walzer family feel welcome here today?
The referendum was ugly. I understand the protest of people not trusting "dodgy" Westminster, I understand the anger at Tory austerity, of a Labour party that has lost touch with its core working class voters, their lives so different from "Islington privilege". I understand that the bureaucrats in Europe are faceless and unaccountable. So, I understand the debate. But I don't understand the xenophobia, the Nationalism, the isolationism and the racism that has seen a black friend of mine being racially abused. Last Thursday I went to sleep just before the results had come through. The last thing I saw before lights out was Nigel Farage bellowing into the camera: "We Will Win This War." War?!
On Referendum results morning. I awoke to see Marine Le Penn congratulating Nigel Farage on "taking back his country." Later, at the theatre, the mood was sombre on stage. Sarah Frankum, Artistic Director of the Royal Exchange Theatre arrived saying she needed a good laugh after no sleep and the shocking news.
The trials and tribulations of an immigrant family seemed all the more apt on such an historic day. Sarah told us that while she was expecting a razor sharp comedy, she was also surprisingly moved by what she saw on stage. She felt a poignancy in watching the Walzer family come alive - a family which originated from "bug country", who grew beets, struggled to make a living and find a place to call home.
I wonder if The Walzer family would have felt so welcome on Britain's shores today.
