A Manchester Anthem – Riverside Studios

A Manchester Anthem opens with Tommy (Tom Claxton) having it large to the 1990 dance classic ‘Anthem’ by N-Joi. He’s in underpants, dancing with the unhinged enthusiasm of a person who has no idea that anybody might be watching. It’s unsexy slapstick, totally relatable and introduces us to a character who’s about to take the audience on a one-man, one-hour trip into a messy night out in Manchester.

When N-Joi released Anthem, I was at university in Liverpool and that summer, lived in a crazy rave squat in Hulme, Manchester. If you Google ‘Anthem by N-Joi Quadrant Park’ there’s a one-minute clip of the tune being dropped at the legendary Merseyside club. I was a regular at ‘The Quaddie’ and a loved-up devotee to the Hacienda too, but this show isn’t a misty-eyed flashback to ‘90s Madchester. This is a millennial soliloquy, fuelled by the universal themes of insecurity and how to maintain integrity while fleeing the community that shaped and broke you.

Later in the narrative, we learn that ‘Anthem’ is the track which ruled the radio on the day Tommy was born. He tells us that his mum then played it to him as a toddler, to soothe and amuse them both. With huge emotional impact, she does so again at the close of the play. This detail made me feel very, very old, but one can’t fault a production for the passage of time. As with Tommy, N-Joi’s ‘Anthem’ comes laden with personal happy memories. For him, it’s remembering maternal care and joyful dancing as a child. For me, living with chainsaw jugglers from the Archaos circus and waving glo-sticks on a podium.

In A Manchester Anthem, Tommy is a working-class lad who, unlike his brother, swerves a potential life of crime and addiction. Following a secondary school scholarship, he secures a place at Oxford. Tommy carries the weight and anxiety of being the first in a family to have a crack at higher education. We meet him as he’s navigating a potential shift in status which isn’t always welcolmed by one’s peers. Claxton goes at the cracking script with the precision and sharp acuity of a stand-up comic. Occasionally, he breaks the fourth wall to bounce off the audience. It’s a tad edgy and very funny. His asides to the crowd are cocky yet charming. Written by Nick Dawkins, this dramatic monologue is tight, punchy and brilliantly paced. Claxton’s skill lies in his ability to keep the audience both gripped and cheerily complicit in what it seems like an impromptu anecdote.

Dawkins wrote A Manchester Anthem with Tom Claxton in mind and gave the script to him as a birthday present. If there’s a more heart-warming origin story for a current stage show, I’ve yet to hear it. The generosity and spirit of this collaborative gesture shines through every word, move and moment in this already acclaimed work. In 2023, A Manchester Anthem was an award winner at the sadly departed VAULT Festival, then a sell-out hit at Edinburgh Fringe the same year.

Anna Niamh Gorman’s set is starkly simple and highly effective, using just a pile of LED rigged cardboard boxes to convey a variety of venues and vibes. There’s a nod to Ben Kelly’s iconic designs for the Hacienda and we see the Manchester Bee, symbolising the city’s industrious past and strong sense of community. Using very little, lighting designer Caelan Oram succinctly conveys the fleeting city lights seen from the back of a boozy cab, throbbing clubby colours and a shadowy encounter down a backstreet.

Director, Charlie Norburn, handles the darker scenes with the same skill as the comic vignettes, but it’s Claxton’s ability to inhabit a wide range of characters that steals the show. A Manchester Anthem might make old ravers wistful and resonate with millennials, but it’s about leaving home and growing up, which everyone has face do at some point. This universal but evolving theme is served via contemporary writing and a storming performance that highlights how theatre can still deliver a very relevant thrill.

A Manchester Anthem is at Riverside Studios until Saturday 13th September https://riversidestudios.co.uk/see-and-do/a-manchester-anthem-174673/

Reviewer: Stewart Who?

Reviewed: 20th August 2025

North West End UK Rating: