IT IS a well-loved classic which has long been said to offer two of the best character parts for an actor, one when he is perhaps starting out in his career, the other when he is reaching its peak.
Certainly some big name actors have played boot-hand Willie Mossop and bootmaker Henry Hobson and, on occasions, both parts at different stages in their careers.
Hobson’s Choice, written by Lancashire playwright Harold Brighouse in 1915, is set in the 1880s and chronicles the shift in the balance of power between the generations and the sexes.
Much performed, both in the professional and in the amateur theatre, it remains great value for money as an entertaining theatre piece.
The Pierrot Players are the latest of the area’s societies to stage it and their new production of this classic piece opens at Shelley Village Hall on Wednesday, where it runs for four nights.
Ian Stevenson will be centre stage as Henry Hobson, who fails to detect that times are changing, and Alistair Cheetham is Willie, the boot-hand whose life, and prospects, are about to change, courtesy of Maggie Hobson, the boss’s daughter.
It’s a cast brimming with talent. Arthur Firth directs, with Joan Gough contributing off-stage as producer and on-stage as Mrs Hepworth, a better type of shop customer.
Regulars such as Anthony Clifton are also in the cast, alongside Kenneth Greenwood – more often seen with both Huddersfield and Halifax Thespians – who is making his first appearance with Pierrot to play the doctor.
Look out too for Gareth Dickinson, cast as Jim Heeler, another Huddersfield Thespian regular but who, in productions with other societies, has proved himself no mean singer either.
