The title character of the Barn’s season-opening production, ironically named ‘Happy Jack’ by his wife, is not a happy man at all. In fact he’s a grumpy, long-suffering character shaped by the hard life he’s led.

Luckily though, everyone involved in bringing this story to life is happy and, according to director Cliff Francis, they’ve been “laughing hysterically in rehearsals since we started!”

And hopefully this will extend to the audience, alternating with scenes of sadness and pathos too that this well-written observational play provides.

For Cliff, this is his second full production at the Barn, the first being the excellent The 39 Steps, a fast-paced, very funny spoof on the original story. Altogether though, Cliff has been involved one way or another with the Barn for 10 years, mostly acting, the most significant, he said, being Arsenic and Old Lace because that’s where he met Sharon, his wife (who’s stage manager for Happy Jack).

The play’s author is John Godber, whose early work was an adaptation of A Clockwork Orange. His best-known play is Bouncers and his latest production is called Scary Bikers – none of which could be thought of as quiet and gentle.

However, his 1982 play Happy Jack is exactly that. Based on the lives of the writer’s own grandparents, who lived for their whole lives in a small Yorkshire mining village, it tells the story of their 40-year marriage, warts and all.

Told in reverse, we meet Jack, played by Simon Parr, and Liz, Mary Powell, in their 60s, not long before their deaths, and the play ends as Jack asks Liz out for the first time in their teens. Over the years, we see the trials and tribulations of an ordinary working-class couple living their lives the best way they can.

It’s all been very mundane and routine: nothing much happens – but we’re soon drawn into their story, arguments and all.

Underlying the gentleness are the terrible hardships and deprivations Jack went through as a miner, the working man’s lot that he has to endure in order to put a roof over his family’s head and food on the table, and the terrible legacies that many miners were left with long after leaving the pits.

He certainly doesn’t have much to be happy about. However, underneath that hard, angry Yorkshire exterior, he’s a poet and spends his time writing poems which he loves reading aloud to Liz.

The story is told as if it were a book, with the two actors reading out chapter titles and page numbers, letting the audience know exactly where they are in time. And they portray other people as they talk about the characters they’ve met on their journey through life.

The play is staged with minimal set and props, as Cliff says it allows the audience to use their imagination. “It would work beautifully as a radio play with its shifting moods, light and sad, it really rattles along. Even at our first reading it just came alive.”

However, Happy Jack was not his original choice. He first obtained the licence for another John Godber play, September in the Rain, which has the same characters.

“Back in February I was looking for a stunning show, ideally with a cast of two or three, and that fitted the bill. Then came Covid and lockdown. Simon and Mary had learned their lines and we had about a dozen rehearsals, all on Zoom. We never met in the same room!

“When we were told in May it could finally be staged, we could no longer get the rights for some reason. Happy Jack was available though and we started rehearsing at the beginning of July. It helped that it was about the same two people as so much of the character work had been done and some scenes were familiar.           

“It’s a lovely play, a little unknown gem, and I’m very pleased with what we’ve done with it. Rehearsals are a joy, and Simon and Mary are perfect in their roles.”

Do go and see this story of a lifetime in 90 minutes for yourselves.

24th September to 2nd October 2021 at 8pm in the main auditorium.