{"id":12527,"date":"2024-10-28T10:10:55","date_gmt":"2024-10-28T09:10:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=12527"},"modified":"2024-10-28T10:10:55","modified_gmt":"2024-10-28T09:10:55","slug":"new-dawn-fades-royal-northern-college-of-music-reviewed-by-peter-wild","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=12527","title":{"rendered":"New Dawn Fades, Royal Northern College of Music, reviewed by Peter Wild"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>A brave if uneven adaption of the Joy Division Story<\/em><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/new-dawn-fades.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"334\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong>New Dawn Fades | Royal Northern College of Music | 18<sup>th<\/sup> and 19<sup>th<\/sup> of October 2024<br \/><\/strong><strong>Reviewed by Peter Wild<\/strong><strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The story of Joy Division, at this point in the history of the world, is something of a well-trodden path. There have been documentaries, books and high-profile films (<em>24 Hour Party People<\/em> and <em>Control<\/em>). Brian Gorman\u2019s play, <em>New Dawn Fades<\/em>, first premiered in July 2013 at the Manchester Fringe Festival and has toured nationally, although it has since been completely revamped. It\u2019s been playing to packed houses, and Saturday night at the Royal Northern College of Music was no exception. There was certainly a lot of love in the room for the band and also, if the scattered ovation at the end was anything to go by, for the play itself.<\/p>\n<p>What you have here is a sort of drama-cum-lecture. A two-hander. Tony Wilson on the one side, at his lectern (admirably played by Brian Gorman himself), and the band and others (including Agricola, John Dee, Frederich Engels, etc.) either interact with Wilson or play out their scenes. The psychogeographical elements of <em>New Dawn Fades<\/em> \u2013\u00a0i.e. those attempts to place the story of Joy Division within a wider context of time and place\u00a0\u2013 are evidence of what you might call the play\u2019s ambition. It knows this is well-trodden ground and it\u2019s trying to assert a place for itself as something different. \u00a0<\/p>\n<p>This ambition, though, runs at odds with the obvious budget limitations the play has. Certain actors play a number of parts: Nicholas Eccles and Josh Chadwick, for example, each play eight characters. Sometimes it works beautifully, as when Jamie Jones, who plays Bernard Sumner, dashes on as Johnny Rotten for a spell. Sometimes it\u2019s less successful: the Liam Gallagher-esque swagger of Martin Hannett doesn\u2019t feel entirely on the money (Hannett was full of himself, but he was a complex figure all the same).<\/p>\n<p>The play is at its best in the back and forth between Wilson, the band, and the band\u2019s manager Rob Gretton (nicely played by S\u00e9an Cernow), or when the band \u2018play\u2019 for the audience. You can\u2019t help but admire the gusto with which the production barrels along. There are, perhaps inevitably, longueurs, best seen in the relationship between Ian Curtis and his wife Debbie (the Factory story is not one that is at pains to bring women to the forefront \u2013 although I heartily recommend reading Audrey Golden\u2019s <em>I Thought I Heard You Speak: Women at Factory Records<\/em> if you get the chance). Lauren Greenwood as Debbie does her best with what is largely a thankless task of trudging on stage to berate Ian and then wandering off again. And the fact that Curtis\u2019 mistress Annik only gets name-checked without an actual physical presence on the stage feels like an odd creative choice.<\/p>\n<p>Does <em>New Dawn Fades<\/em> manage to carve itself a unique space alongside the better-known 24-Hour<em> Party People<\/em> or <em>Control<\/em>? Not quite. But, on the evidence of the rapturous applause that greeted the spirited run through of &#8216;Love Will Tear Us Apart&#8217; that crowns the production, it doesn\u2019t really matter. There will always be an audience for the Joy Division story.<\/p>\n<p><em>Reviewed by Peter Wild<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A brave if uneven adaption of the Joy Division Story New Dawn Fades | Royal Northern College of Music | 18th and 19th of October 2024Reviewed by Peter Wild\u00a0 The story of Joy Division, at this point in the history of the world, is something of a well-trodden path. There have been documentaries, books and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":45,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":[]},"categories":[283,17],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v20.2.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>New Dawn Fades, Royal Northern College of Music, reviewed by Peter Wild - The Manchester Review<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=12527\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"New Dawn Fades, Royal Northern College of Music, reviewed by Peter Wild - The Manchester Review\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"A brave if uneven adaption of the Joy Division Story New Dawn Fades | Royal Northern College of Music | 18th and 19th of October 2024Reviewed by Peter Wild\u00a0 The story of Joy Division, at this point in the history of the world, is something of a well-trodden path. 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