Original HAPPY JACK cast reunited onstage in revival of John Godber’s first play

The New Vic will host a special production of John Godber’s Happy Jack from 21-30 April to celebrate the Victoria Theatre Company’s 60th Anniversary of theatre making. 

In the show that first brought them together over forty years ago, BAFTA and multi award-winning couple John Godber and Jane Thornton will star in the play first written by Godber at the age of 25. 

In Happy Jack, lifelong lovers Jack, a stoical, stubborn and truculent miner and Liz, his effusive optimistic long-suffering wife capture the halcyon years before the miners strike. Life was hard, money was scarce and everything was a struggle but Jack and Liz learn to live with what little they have and create lasting memories with an affection for each other in a hilarious and touching play.

Writer and director John Godber said: “Happy Jack obviously means so much to Jane and I because it was the play that brought us together. It is essentially a love story told backwards, about a couple who found it difficult to say I love you. The surrounding hinterland to the play is industrial hardship, lack of ambition, thwarted opportunities and a life with little or no disposable income. But the knowledge of continuous work gave the miners of the past something to take pride in. All that has gone, though the hardships of the past may just be beginning to bite again as we look towards an uncertain future. The play is a memory play, which recalls imprecisely a marriage that spans fifty years. The ups and downs and the joys and sadness within a relationship are timeless. What the play manages to achieve in a short space of time illustrates a whole proud, loving community which sadly is no longer with us.”

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