The Everyman Theatre, Hope Street
Saturday 20th April to Saturday 11th May 2024

Reviewed by Neil Morrin

A strange play made up of seemingly unrelated stories from across times and places but each, in some way talk of the struggle of humankind against the forward march of capitalism and industrialisation. So fair to say it wasn’t big on laughs.

Ned Ludd was brilliant, I loved it. From the smiles the cast give each other at the start of each section, to the weird way the snippets or stories are picked randomly by the computer/bingo machine that towers over the set. The set is really reminiscent of what most of the audience would think an Amazon warehouse looks like. With cardboard boxes arriving on belts of rollers providing the cast with their costumes and set accoutrements.

The stories I saw were from Nottingham, China, India and Paris plus another but can’t remember where – each night the stories that are picked are different so the performance feels as if it has a disjointed nature but I wouldn’t say this lessens the play as a whole. They are mostly stories depicting our present day struggles from around the world, with the underlying narrative relating them to the original struggle of the Luddites.

The game playing Chinese interns forced to earn virtual gold coins for the prison guard discussing the disappearance of a fellow intern, a poet. Simply a man with a pen but too dangerous to live.

Children discussing a Native American tribe who disappeared after a battle with Europeans about which nothing is known of them – who they were, how they lived, their culture – nothing. Just that they all died after a battle with Europeans in the 1600’s.

The Indian woman who is overjoyed at a new job away from her home, we are left to assume at a call centre.

It has to be said that I felt more at home with Nottingham scenes, my familiarity with the story behind Ned Ludd meant these scenes meant more to me. I found myself being pulled into the Nottingham coal scene, it was deeply moving to think of everything they had lost and to be brought so low.

The play displays the senselessness of the way we have allowed ourselves to be treated, by subjugating ourselves to the man. Why do some have nothing, and others more than they can spend. The Luddites were right.

In the evening, I am a critic. (If you saw that snippet then you will know)