Spend Spend Spend, Royal Exchange Manchester, Review

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Sat 23 Nov 2024 - Sat 11 Jan 2025

What would you do if you won £4.3m (or, more precisely, £152,319, in 1961)?

As far as Viv Nicholson was concerned, the clue is in the title of this musical by Steve Brown and Justin Greene.

It was first performed in 1998, at the West Yorkshire Playhouse. In 1999, at London’s Piccadilly Theatre, Rachel Leskovac was nominated for an Olivier Award for her portrayal of the young Viv. For this Royal Exchange Christmas show, she plays the older Viv, who narrates her life story and treats us to a song or two.

Rose Galbraith is the younger bundle-of-energy Viv.



Spend Spend Spend is essentially a musical and dramatic take on Viv Nicholson’s 1977 autobiography, of the same name, co-written with Stephen Smith.

Rachel Leskovac, amidst a silver-themed set design, looks distinctively like the Viv Nicholson, I first became aware of, talking to Morrissey in the back of a car during the 1987 South Bank Show (ITV) about The Smiths. She had been one of the band’s cover stars - - specifically for the single Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now (’I was happy in the haze of a drunken hour .. . ’)



The early scenes are centred on the West Yorkshire town of Castleford, where the ‘billet-douxs’ she receives, as a cinema ice-cream girl (Diana Dors cannot compare), incur the wrath of her protective father George (played by Joe Alessi - who also gets to show off his Bruce Forsyth impression when Viv’s football pools win brings her into the showbiz orbit).

George stumbles from the drudgery of the mine or worklessness into the clutches of the Miners Arms. Alcoholic escape is a theme picked up later in the musical, when, for Viv, Veuve Clicquot flows like cheap beer, as she digs too deep into her goldmine, with a canary in a gilded cage as one of her exotic pets.

Having abandoned her dutiful virginity, after realising it made no difference to her reputation, Viv ends up sweet 16 and six months gone and married too.

One thing that defines her, especially in her early days, is her ability to climb her way out of whatever hole she finds herself in. She is abused but not a victim, except of her own voracious appetite for life. She leaves her husband, Matt, for romantic neighbour, Keith. The love story between Viv and Keith is at the heart of the drama. Her love for him is the thing that remains after the money and other husbands have been and gone.

The style of Spend Spend Spend reminded me of Stephen Sondheim's musicals, where the music underpins and maintains the momentum of the dialogue and action. As in Sondheim, there were a couple of stand-out numbers which emerged from the narrative. I particularly enjoyed the Bacharach-and-David tinged Scars Of Love (I won’t forget after the dance), where Viv and Matt embrace beneath a mirrorball.



Who's Gonna Love Me? is the most moving song - with Rose Galbraith dressed in black and getting closer to the appearance and posture of Rachel Leskovac’s watchful Viv. There was a great unspoken rapport between the two actresses.

The central characters were supported by a swirling ensemble of characters, from various stages of the story. I particularly enjoyed Alfie Parker’s turn as the cat-widow, who is dressed rather like Mrs. Doubtfire and is the author of one of the sackful of begging letters that Viv and Matt receive.

The costume department was certainly kept busy in this production. At one point, one of the cast’s wigs fell off as she spun around the circular stage, in a dance number. A front-row member of the audience helpfully threw it back.

It was not always easy to say what was compelling about Viv as a character - it was after all an amoral lifestyle, with no pretence to sainthood. But the collateral damage she may have caused - which would be better explored in a documentary - was, in Steve Brown and Justin Greene’s take, a by-product of her impulsive nature, as she lived out a very common fantasy of sudden wealth.

The Viv we see never sets out to swindle anyone - she is a survivor rather than a vindictive con artist. A working-class woman who spent her winnings but earned the right to an audience who would invest time in listening to her tale.

She asks at the end - Would I do the same again?. It’s no doubt a question that we all, as audience members, were left pondering as we walked out into the dark, past the stalls of Manchester’s Christmas Market.



Spend Spend Spend runs for approx 2hrs 30mins, including a 20 minute interval. Standard Tickets from £12. For more information click here .

23 November 2024 – 11 January 2025

A Musical by Steve Brown and Justin Greene
Inspired by the Life of Viv Nicholson
And the book by Viv Nicholson and Stephen Smith
Directed by Josh Seymour.

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