National Theatre, til 5 April 2025 

⭐⭐⭐⭐

Astute production revitalises a still-relevant character study. 

In recent weeks I’ve rhapsodised about local theatres like the King’s Head or the Park Theatre, but last Friday I was back in the big leagues at the National Theatre. While little venues will always have my heart, the vibe was absolutely buzzing at the National and it was a joy to be a part of. The National Theatre is in fact three theatres housing 2,500 people altogether, meaning at about 7.15pm there’s an absolute flood of punters in the lobby, drinking their drinks and eating their snacks and nattering away, eagerly awaiting the night’s entertainment. The hum of excitement carried over to the Lyttleton Theatre where, ahead of our scheduled start time, the arriving crowd was greeted with a character on-stage with a boom box slung over his shoulder grooving to Bob Marley. Audience members were dancing and giggling as they filed into their seats, some even getting a bit of heckling in the front row.

I overheard a schoolteacher near me explaining (to his gang of impeccably-uniformed students) the significance of the song to the setting of the play. Alterations unfolds over about 24 hours in a Carnaby Street tailor’s shop in the 1970s. Guyanese-born Walker Holt has an overwhelming ambition to buy the shop he currently rents, which he sees as his one-way express ticket to a brighter future. In his desperation he takes one enormous order – the job to end all jobs – to finally secure his deposit. Helping him tackle the task are his old friend and ‘partner’ (in name only, thanks to Walker’s cheapness) Buster, his quirkily-dressed frenemy Horace and the put-upon young driver (and general shop dogsbody) Courtney. As time marches on, and the job increasingly seems insurmountable, tempers grow fierce – and then are further stoked by the arrival of Walker’s estranged love (and baby momma) Darlene. What emerges over a long night and day are some uncomfortable truths about the price a Black man needs to pay to get ahead in Britain. 

Alterations is set in the 1970s but offers a contemporaneous perspective, having first premiered in 1978. It was written by pioneering Black playwright Michael Abbensetts, a prominent writer in his day, but this production also has additional material written by Trish Cooke. I’d be fascinated to know which bits belong to whom because on the whole, Alterations doesn’t seem dated. In fact, its depictions of race – the men putting in twice the graft just to get by, the boys cast as villains – are all-too-recognisable. Themes that are sensitively explored through the original cast of characters are cleverly linked to the modern day by the inclusion of some simple but unequivocally current imagery.

One thing that surprised me about Alterations is how funny it is. Especially in the early scenes, it plays essentially as a comedy – the three men needle and tease each other as workmates might. It’s only as the work ratchets up – and Walker’s grasp on his prize seems at risk – that the sniping becomes more pointed. It’s clever writing from Abbensetts (and Cooke); the humour not only gives a bit of sugar for the bitter pill we’re about to swallow but makes the characters feel real. As the situation escalates, the earlier, seemingly mild-mannered jokes about Walker become jigsaw pieces in the emerging picture of his fatal flaws: his womanising, his absentee parenting, his lack of care for his friends.

One way in which Alterations could easily have felt dated is through the character of Darlene, the sole female character in what is undoubtedly a man’s story. She is certainly a firecracker, though in early scenes I felt like she was being cast into the trope of the put-upon-but-defiant wife (sarcastic jokes, flirting with the other men, etc). I think this is corrected in later scenes in which she is portrayed with more complexity. The scene in which Walker and Darlene reminisce about first falling in love is one of the best of the show; though neither is blameless it’s easy to see the tragic spiral they fell into that drew them apart. 

Coming out of Alterations I realised I hadn’t had a single thought about the performance of the cast, which I suppose might be the highest compliment I can pay. I thought the set design from Frankie Bradshaw was really fantastic; the ever-increasing racks of clothing show the oppressiveness of the work ahead while still seeming naturalistic to a tailor’s shop. Director Lynette Linton makes excellent use of the set with a slowly revolving stage and an extra section that glides in and out of view, cleverly conveying the passage of time and also the mirage-like way in which Walker sees his future. 

While Abbensetts was well-recognised in his lifetime for his writing talent, this production of Alterations still puts it in front of a bigger audience than it’s ever had before. Trish Cooke and Lynette Linton have given Abbensetts’ work a well-deserved chance to be seen by a new generation, in an astute production that does justice to the source material while bringing it into the modern day.

Visit the National Theatre website for tickets to Alterations.