A Kind of Loving

How can you think you’ve found so much and suddenly wake-up and find you’ve found nothing at all?

It’s 1962. Victor Brown is 20 years old and he’s infatuated with Ingrid Rothwell, a typist from the factory where he works. Both are from Cressley, a working-class town in West Riding, Yorkshire.  Victor soon finds his feelings for Ingrid have nothing to do with love. But Ingrid loves Victor and agrees to carrying on with their unofficial courtship in bus shelters, parks and the cinema.

Ignorance leads to Ingrid getting pregnant, and they are forced into a marriage that neither is ready for and Vic doesn’t want.  When Vic moves in with his in-laws everything changes, and the bargaining begins.

A Kind of Loving was published in 1960 and made Stan Barstow one of the key voices of the 1960’s cultural renaissance in British life.

Bang Theatre’s A Kind of Loving launches North meets South. An ongoing exploration of Northern writers’ novels, plays and films, past, present and future.

OFF WEST END AWARDS NOMINATED FOR BEST MALE PERFORMANCE: ALAN GOODBODY

Press for this production

a wonderful sense of the era and some fine comedy moments. Gritty, fun and still relevant, A Kind of Loving is a real treat. ★★★★ Fairy Powered Productions

Director Elizabeth Elstub has brought us a very good play that is not only entertaining but gives a fascinating picture of English social morals and society of the English at the start of a period where everything was questioned and, for some the decline and fall of the UK really began. ★★★★ London Theatre 1

Fine performances by Adam Goodbody and Courtney Buchner carry this stage adaptation by John Godber of Stan Barstow’s celebrated novel to success. ★★★★ Reviewsgate

Bang Theatre are bang on with John Godber’s adaptation of A Kind of Loving, the award-winning 1960 book by Ken Barstow that set the scene for film and theatre for the following decade… A Kind of Loving is not a tale crucial to its time, but one that is timeless, and this is a great production. Adam Goodbody is superb as Victor Brown. He is on stage more or less throughout the duration and never misses a beat. Soutwark News

First published in 1960, A Kind Of Loving captured something of the spirit of the age and also something timeless about love, honour and loneliness…Godber writes Vic compassionately and the transition from bashful fella on the up pursuing a pretty girl to desperate young man who has lost control of his life is understatedly dense with pathos. Adam Goodbody carries the play and his portrayal of Vic is detailed and charismatic. British Theatre Guide

Press for previous productions

A topical, moving production looking at the story of one of the millions of men killed in WW1. Moving, polished and incredibly professional. ★★★★ Everything Theatre on Killed, July 17^th 1916

Effortlessly transported to the decadent Thirties, the all- round sparkling cast brings out the text’s hilarity and makes the themes of avarice, marital and social ambition contemporary. ★★★★ The Stage on The Magnetic Lady

Showed a piquant affinity with the big life questions being considered here – those human themes that bear so heavily on us: love, loss, the body, war, grief, motherhood, womanhood, the often-destructive nature of men. ★★★★ Anita-Marguerite Butler on Shakespeare’s Women  

Image: Two Lovers Kissing © Estate of Bob Collins/Museum Of London