Review: A Manchester Anthem, Riverside Studios

Leaving home for the first time is never just about packing boxes. It’s about who you might become, and who you risk leaving behind. Nick Dawkins’ A Manchester Anthem, back in London from a Manchester run, captures that liminal moment with a heady mix of humour, tenderness and house beats.

We follow Tommy (Tom Claxton), a young Mancunian on the brink of going to university in Oxford, working his last shift in a coffee shop before one final night out. He’s the first in his family, his street, even his friendship group, to go to university. That achievement should glow like neon, but Dawkins writes him as suspended between two competing pulls: the comfort of old mates and the intimidating promise of a new world.

What makes the piece so compelling is Claxton’s performance. Alone on stage for an hour, he inhabits Tommy with natural ease, all quick wit and nervous charm, then shifts seamlessly into the other figures orbiting his story: a boss who inspects her nails more than her staff, a mate who’d cheerfully ruin your pint for a laugh, an insufferably posh fresher draped across a sofa. Each is sketched with sharp precision. The club scene, where Claxton rattles through a parade of dance moves, is worth the ticket price on its own.

Izzy Edwards directs with clarity, keeping the energy high without ever letting the pace feel frantic. In one word, this play is fluid. The cardboard-box set by Anna Niamh Gorman is deceptively simple: stacked packing cases become canvases for Manchester icons – the tram, the bee, the road signs to the Northern Quarter – while also reminding us that Tommy’s life is literally in transit. It’s a neat design that holds both nostalgia and possibility.

The writing is warm and acutely observed. Dawkins captures the nervous bravado of someone straddling two identities, and the script brims with wit and heart. The moments with Tommy’s mother – brief, understated, utterly grounding – are a reminder of what’s at stake when someone dares to break free of where they’ve come from, and a reminder that home really is where the heart is.

What lingers after the lights go down isn’t just the comedy or the club soundtrack, but the bittersweet honesty. A Manchester Anthem knows that growing up means stepping into a different world, and it doesn’t pretend the transition is painless. But it also insists on celebrating the joy, the hope, and the sheer absurdity of being twenty and on the cusp of everything.

It’s a five-star reminder that stepping into the future doesn’t mean letting go of where you came from and the ones you love.

Written by: Nick Dawkins
Original direction by: Charlie Norburn
Production direction by: Izzy Edwards
Set Design by: Anna Niamh Gorman

A Manchester Anthem plays at Riverside Studios until Saturday 13 September