Reviewing 'Alterations' at the National: This Tailor Shop Comedy Has Audiences in Stitches

★★★ | It is a 1970s revival from the moment one enters the Lyttelton Theatre, whose stage is decorated with clothing rungs of garish greens and oranges. While '70s funk plays, an actor is jamming out in bootcut jeans. Alterations’ little square set makes you feel something like the live audience to a 70s sitcom, and the firecracker comedy orchestrates its own laughing track.

Brought out from the National Theatre’s Black Plays Archive, Michael Abbensetts’s 1978 play is a fun and colourful comedy with a poignant genuineness at its core. Walker (Arinzé Kene) owns a tailor shop and is tired of being less respected as an immigrant-run business, the second choice amongst suit-wearing Londoners. Constantly grappling with the feeling of being inconsequential, his ambitions wear away at his personal life and relationships – and it is his wife, Darlene, who sorely bears the brunt. Meanwhile, his colleague Buster (Gershwyn Eustache Jr) is expecting a phone call informing him of the birth of his child, and the van driver, Courtney (Raphel Famotibe), is only 19 but already waning in optimism about the future. It is a story that examines different generations, joined by their struggles with the Black immigrant experience in Great Britain, but divided by perspective.

The company of Alterations. Photo Credit: Marc Brenner

Frankie Bradshaw’s set design is great but nothing experimental. In classic NT style, she makes good use of the National’s extensive staging equipment: there is a revolving turntable, clothing rungs which are lifted and lowered overhead (it appears to require a lot of effort for a set piece that doesn’t serve much of a purpose), and platforms moving in from the wings that briefly show another scene. Perhaps it is meant to tease the future, where a clearly more up-together tailor shop is fitting a stylish young man for a suit.

In any case, the metaphors going on in the staging feel quite forced. A couple in smart, old-timey dress wanders the outskirts of the stage as a representation of a prior, classier generation. They are then succeeded by a youth in a tracksuit and headphones, representative of the strange and uncertain future. The symbolism is very face-value, and I’m unsure whether it adds meaning, or if the sudden appearance of a figment of 21st-century culture and a pair of Sony headphones feels distracting. These metaphors and abstractions take attention away from the actual nuance at hand; focusing on the little haberdashery drama, rather than adding more spectacle, would have made the production more poignant.

The company of Alterations. Photo Credit: Marc Brenner

However, it is a greatly enjoyable play, perfectly tailoring its comedy and its heartfelt moments. It probes questions of identity, of first-generation immigrants wondering at the future of the world whose foundations they have laid down. In Alterations, the group is tasked with completing a bumper order of trouser alterations over the next 48 hours, and the commission will set Walker up for the Carnaby Street tailor shop he dreams of. He stands on a faultline between the safety of his community and a promising but hostile world, his inability to fully realise his ambitions in either leading to his destructive desires. It epitomises the frustrations of the marginalised experience. But we are never left in the gloom for too long. Our hearts ache for Darlene and her raw deal in the play, then swoon when Horace confesses his love for her. Cherrelle Skeete (as Darlene, isolated amongst the ensemble in her experience as a black woman) is a standout. 

Kene could gel better with the rest – he seems to adopt a singular approach to his role, with a ton of over-acting and theatrics, which often grates with the other performances. It makes empathy for him, as the wrongdoing divorcé, slightly harder to elicit. Finally, Buster learns of the birth of his son, and his performance in this scene is incredible. We see shock, fear, and disbelief in his reaction, as his new identity gradually dawns on him and eventually becomes glee. The fear and uncertainty of navigating the world as an immigrant disbands as he now propagates a new generation. All their contested anxieties about the future fade with the pure joy of the birth of a child. The script itself excellently weaves in light-heartedness alongside the more profound – that’s why the added spectacle in an attempt to abstract it feels unnecessary.

The company of Alterations. Photo Credit: Marc Brenner

Overall, it is a production well worth rescuing, a landmark play by Abbensetts that doesn’t need overcomplicating. The individual dramas of our tailors are mostly quaint, everyday, and low-stakes, but are acted with an earnestness that imbues them with resounding poignancy – too much symbolism only patronises the depth of meaning that is already present in his script. Despite this, Lynette Linton excels in this revival. Alterations is a gleaming, witty, joyful slice of life worth returning to the stage. 

★★★

Alterations plays at the National's Lyttelton Theatre until 5 April.