Like the recession itself, award winning Cheshire-based writer Tim Firth’s feel good comedy Sign Of The Times is making its own riotous return.

Originally commissioned by Sir Alan Ayckbourn in 1991, then entitled Absolutely Frank, the re-written show sees Frank Tollit – played by Stephen Tompkinson – trying to find happiness during a time of economic cutbacks.

Photo: Alistair Muir

Tim Firth spoke exclusively to the Chronicle before the play hits the Liverpool Playhouse on its national tour next week.

He said: “People might think it was written with this recession in mind but it is simply the way things have fallen in to place.

“It is a play I wrote in Scarborough in the early 1990s. I remember Alan Ayckbourn showed me where the play would be presented, it was a cafe, full of pensioners eating soup.

“I went away to the railway station in Scarborough panicking. I thought: ‘It is going to have to a play where people shout, and where there’s something big, and physical’.

“While I sat there I saw these two men putting up a Tesco sign on a new supermarket. I thought ‘you can’t miss a six foot high letter S, and if you are on a roof of a building you are going to have to shout. Then gradually it started to come alive.”

Sign of the Times follows Frank, an electrical installation engineer for a commercial lettering company, who has spent 25 years putting up giant letters on buildings. But his true ambition involves letters of a very different sort – writing novels.

“It is a comedy about what I think is the greatest question of all – achieving happiness,” added Tim.

The production reunites the Calendar Girls writer with former Ballykissangel star Stephen Tompkinson after they shared award winning partnerships with All Quiet On The Preston Front and The Flint Street Nativity.

Tim said: “I haven’t worked with Stephen Tompkinson since we did the TV adaptation of The Flint Street Nativity. It is a massive role and Stephen is a fantastic actor. The great thing about him is he hears the music of comedy. He has an interest in comedy and I never have to explain a line to him.”

“There’s something welcoming about the Playhouse because it genuinely is a play house, it’s very friendly and feels homely. It is a beautiful theatre to play to where the people are interested in comedy, they come to want to laugh and that is what the play will give them. It’s a bit different to the Scarborough cafe too,” said Tim.

Norwich Theatre Royal

After a hard-day's work staring into a computer it was quite refreshing to view something live on stage and see a real person - but in this case persons - as Tim Firth's engaging new comedy centres upon two likeable characters living their working lives very close to the edge while enjoying the 'high life' at the same time!

As the curtain rises we meet them immediately. Frank Tollit (played furiously funny by Stephen Tompkinson - Drop the Dead Donkey, Ballykissangel and Brassed Off) and Alan (played by Tom Shaw - The Inbetweeners and Skins) are staggering about 60 feet in the air awkwardly installing a large illuminated sign on a crummy old north Yorkshire office block overlooking an equally-crummy shopping complex.

Frank's the company's senior fitter and feels happily and gainfully employed but harbours a wish of becoming a spy novelist while Alan portrays a bored work experience YTS lad dreaming of rising to the heights of fame by becoming a rock star.

Both actors fitted their roles perfectly while possessing excellent delivery and timing so crucial to the play's pace, rhythm and success. And judging by the capacity audience's reaction last night it's a sure-fire winner. They loved every minute of it.

Tompkinson had the audience in stitches time and time again especially in a classic scene in which he offered his worldly and professional advice to his young charge who was, up to a point, completely disinterested. But never be fooled by a youngster!

But the pupil always outstrips the master and so it was in this case. The young Alan proved to be not the bored and dim YTS worker as earlier thought. He possessed well-found opinions but just like Frank he comes close to becoming a cropper.

As the play progresses Alan, looking dapper in a smart whistle and flute housed in his new office on the top floor with sliding doors, climbs the ladder of success and promoted to a manager's job. But does he want it? He now puts Frank through his paces in a reversal of roles but good old Frank fights back in his strict Yorkshire manner.

The interplay between the two never lets up for one moment and they're simply delightful to watch. A host of marvellous comic scenes throughout this cleverly-written play kept the audiences' strict attention particularly when Alan uneasily works a flip-chart while another sees the deuce caught up in the middle of one of their letters in a sketch that Laurel and Hardy would, I think, approve of. The audience roared!

Originally commissioned as a one-act piece by Sir Alan Ayckbourn in 1991, the play has got a strong local connection inasmuch as its director and producer is none other than Peter Wilson, chief executive of Norwich Theatre Royal.

So, if you want a damn good laugh, grab the opportunity.

THIS bittersweet comedy by the writer of the Calendar Girls is the fourth time Stephen Tompkinson has worked with its author Tim Firth so it’s not surprising he knows how to get the best out of the script.

Photo: Alistair Muir

Tompkinson is touching as Frank Tollit, the expert in fixing words to buildings but who struggles to place them together in the gripping spy thriller he so longs to pen.

The role could have been written for his archetypal brand of pathos – combining gentle humour with emotional charge – but instead began as a character from a one-act piece commissioned by Alan Ayckborn in 1991.
Warrington-born Firth extended it into a full length play in 2006, enabling it to end on a more up-beat note than the original.

In the first act, Tollit is the proud head of electrical installation for a commercial lettering company who is looking after a teenager on work experience. In the second, the tables have turned and it is Alan (Tom Shaw) who is in charge of Frank, under a back-to-work scheme for the long-term unemployed.

The stage set is also spun around during the interval – with the ledge upon which they are placing the letters at the outset later positioned outside Alan’s new office. Not that there is any need for fancy scenery with such a cleverly composed script exploring questions we all ask ourselves about our choices in life.

Fortunately Firth does not attempt to provide any two-dimensional answers or tacky soundbites, and the play ends not so much with a neatly wrapped-up resolution as on a hint of optimism.

Shaw comfortably meets the challenge of playing the same character at two different stages in life, with some of the teenager’s traits creeping into the personality of the trainee manager.

A delightful script and thoughtful acting make this a timeless piece of theatre.

Laura Davis - The Liverpool Daily Post

SIGN OF THE TIMES - Liverpool Playhouse

It was Cameron Mackintosh that once said that you see the best in a production after it had been re-written three times and that's exactly what Tim Firth has done with this production, Originally commissioned by Alan Ayckbourn for the Stephen Joseph Theatre as a one act play, Firth has revisited the production and made several changes to it since its birth eighteen years ago.

Sign of the Times (previously known as Absolutely Frank) takes us to the roof of Forshaws an Outdoor Sinage production company and into the life of Frank Tollit, Cheif Installer for Forshaws for 25 years. Frank has taken on a 15 year old Work experience student Alan, who would rather do his own thing (or so it seems) than to listen to Frank.

Firth's script has his usual trademark of witty lines and incredible human interaction that at times has you howling with laughter and at other times deeply saddened by the events that unfold in front of your eyes, especially touching at the pivotal moment of Act 1. Firth has created an interesting premise for the piece for the second act which is certainly the act with the most laughs - one would love to tell you what happens but wouldn't be able to without giving the plot away (I just hate it when reviewers do that!)

With the action taking place on a brilliant set designed by Morgan Large, director Peter Wilson has been able to craft a production that flows with pace and energy which allows the laughter to come freely but also gives the audience the freedom to sit back and think on the more human aspects of the relationship between Frank and Alan, with some clever touches and physical comedy sprinkled throughout you are never left looking at your watch or wanting the production to end.

What really makes this show sparkle is the onstage chemistry between Stephen Tompkinson as Frank and Tom Shaw as Alan, they definitely bring the best out of each other. Thompkinson's portrayal of Frank is one of the most touching performances I have seen in recent times, and Shaw really comes into action when his character is given a much meatier plot in the second half and is quite sublime in his comic prowess.

If this production comes to a theatre near you there really is one thing to do...and that's book your ticket now before the chance to see one of the best plays to have hit the stage fades away like the lights on top of Forshaw's roof.

John Roberts – the public reviews