Hobson’s Choice (Archive)

by Harold Brighouse

May 2000

As well as being very funny, Hobson’s Choice also provides the audience with a wonderful picture of life in a northern city at the end of the nineteenth century. It is a social comment on the prevailing values and prejudicies in a typical middle-class family of the Victorian era.

The plays follows the story of successful shoe shop proprietor Hobson and his eldest daughter Maggie’s efforts to turn her father’s best bootmaker, Will Mossop, from a retiring youth into a sturdy fellow with new confidence and the business accumen to start his own shoe shop.

Efforts which lead inevitably to Hobson being forced to make his own “Hobson’s Choice”…

Cast

Alice Hobson Sarah Lawes
Maggie Hobson Hazel Blenkinsop
Vickey Hobson Ruth Bishop
Albert Prosser Dan Hawkins
Henry Horatio Hobson Barry West
Mrs Hepworth Hazel Galvin
Timothy Wadlow (Tubby) John Staton
Willie Mossop Mike Crawshaw
Jim Heeler Joseph Hughes
Ada Figgins Karrie Shield
Fred Beanstock Guy Bishop
Dr MacFarlane Spencer Cummins

Crew

Producer Ruth West
Co-producer Phil Kohler
Stage Manager Jim Melville
Set Design Christopher Sutton
Set Construction Backstage team
Lighting Ian Squire
Sound Christine Pearson
Props Chris Ward/Jennifer McAllister
Prompt Chris Squire
Costumes Brenda West
Ticket Sales Ken Beer
Publicity Joseph Hughes
Front of House Jo Wylderidge