Last Updated on 28 October 2024 by Colette
This post features gifted experiences
Now I’m going to caveat this review with the fact that I absolutely love anything that Kay Mellor has had a hand in and I’m fairly sure Gaynor Faye can do no wrong either so I went into this performance of The Syndicate at The Lowry with sky high expectations . . .
“Based on the hit BBC TV show that entertained millions of viewers over four series, The Syndicate is a new stage play by the legendary Kay Mellor, that follows five supermarket employees whose lottery syndicate numbers come in, just as their jobs and livelihoods are under threat.”
Faye Mellor’s talent for me lies in creating relatable characters and storylines – any one of those supermarkets employees could live down the road from you and I think we all dream about winning the lottery don’t we – about how our lives would change and what we’d do with the money.
“Will a share of the £24 million jackpot make their dreams come true or their nightmares a reality? One thing’s for certain, the win of a lifetime will change the lives, loves and relationships of all the syndicate members… for ever.”
Throughout the story, we are presented with lots of moral dilemmas – the main one being: Should you be entitled to a share of a lottery win when you haven’t paid into the syndicate for five weeks?
We also see characters grappling with debt, with a cheating partner (who unsurprisingly finds his way back to his wife when she wins the lottery!), infertility, redundancy and guilt over some very poor choices. Of course the overriding theme is that money doesn’t buy happiness.
The Syndicate is set in Leeds, which felt totally normal and almost homely to Mich and I as we are Yorkshire born and bred but we did joke that the strong West Yorkshire accents would have perhaps felt more obvious to the Manchester audience. It’s worth noting that there was lots of strong language but nothing that felt out of place.
References to places like Meanwood and Holbeck probably don’t mean anything to most but having lived and worked in Leeds, they are real places for me which just gave the play a little extra warmth. Mich commented that it was a northern play for northerners and that it would be interesting to see how it was received with more southern audiences.
With a stellar cast of actors including Gaynor Faye (who also directed the play), Samantha Giles (Bernice Blackstock from Emmerdale) and Brook Vincent (Sophie Webster from Coronation Street) it might have been easy to be distracted by the characters you know them best for but, as Mich and I said, a mark of their quality as performers was that we didn’t spend the whole night thinking “Oh I’m watching Sophie from Corrie or Bernice from Emmerdale” – they just were who they were, they totally became the characters Kay Mellor had written.
Brooke Vincent as the money obsessed Amy, was fantastic – she was absolutely hilarious and played her role brilliantly. I’ve recently been watching her talking about her role in The Syndicate on the tv show Drama Queens so I can well imagine she was especially loving performing to a home crowd and we saw lots of her Corrie colleagues in the audience to support her.
Samantha Giles absolutely bossed it in her role as the middle aged, some what naïve Denise (which if you’re an Emmerdale fan won’t really come as much surprise!) She was thoroughly entertaining and I really warmed to her character as the story played out.
Some of the scene changes felt a little clunky relying on a basic blackout – I think I expected something a little slicker – but it did the job. The interval brought a full set change which worked well and helped to add more interest to the stage.
We left the theatre having really enjoyed the show but with an overriding feeling that I didn’t know what I was going to say about it! Essentially it was a nice easy watch with plenty of laughs – nothing too stressful and all fairly predictable even if you didn’t see the TV version, just a lovely bit of Friday night candyfloss!
The Syndicate is playing at The Lowry from Friday 17th to Sunday 19th May 2024. The running time is approximately 2 hours and 30 minutes including an interval.
Check out our guide to Manchester theatre here for more theatre reviews, tips and listings.
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That sounds like a fair enough review to me. I do wonder whether some shows are just best being left to their original medium? Glad it was a pleasant evening for you though!
I was at the same performance, the sound was terrible,the theatre’s explanation was the actors are not mic’ed up. It was pity since it seemed a good show
Yes I must admit I thought there were some sound issues but I thought it was just me. I could hear an irritating whistling / buzzing through the first half of the performance but thought that it must be someone’s hearing aid. They would have definitely benefited from being mic’ed.