Octagon, Bolton
What is the difference between a woman and a traction engine? According to Fred Dibnah, the steeplejack and steam enthusiast, "you can belt an engine with a hammer and they say nowt".
Dibnah died of cancer in 2004 at the age of 66, having felled more than 90 chimneys and demolished three marriages. The final one was to Sheila, a former magician's assistant 20 years his junior, who initially shared his love of anything old and mechanical and did not object to spending her honeymoon at a steam rally. But she put her foot down at the proposal to construct a working mineshaft in the back garden.
Bolton has done much to honour its most eccentric icon. A statue of the man stands proudly in the city centre, and the huge industrial chimney he planted on his mother's back-to-back is protected by a preservation order. Now Aelish Michael's drama puts him centre stage, having been written in close consultation with Dibnah's widow.
The play is as much Sheila's story as Dibnah's. Marriage to a man whose passions belonged to the steam age was never going to be easy; and the drama depicts an uneasy menage � trois between Sheila, her husband and a steam engine named Betsy.
Having nursed her husband through his final illness, Sheila discovered she had been excluded from his will. There is a self-justificatory element here, with Sheila countering accusations of gold-digging with the argument that she married a man with only �600 in the bank and a ton of old pistons in the back yard. But all this acts as a distraction to the more absorbing business of uncovering the enigma of Fred ? a man who took up steeplejacking in order to preserve the monuments of the industrial age, yet ended up tearing many of them down for the benefit of the television cameras.
Colin Connor captures Dibnah's inimitable Lancastrian honk and irrepressible egotism; Michelle Collins plays Sheila with a face that hardens into a mask of exasperation. David Thacker directs with a customary eye for detail, though the script could afford to lose several repetitive scenes that invariably culminate in a big argument and tears. But if Dibnah was larger than life, imperfect and difficult to get on with at times, then this play is a fitting tribute.
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/2011/apr/11/the-demolition-man-review
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