Review: Iron at Home Manchester

“…a riveting production…”

Iron by Rona Munro, Home Manchester

By Hannah Molyneux

Over twenty years after its first performance, Rona Munro’s Iron continues to ask questions about punishment, suffering, and justice – as well as to probe the depths of familial relationships – in this new production, brought back to the stage by real-life mother and daughter Christine and Lois Mackie. It explores connections and shared histories; what it is that binds us and what it takes to pull us apart. Visiting her mother in prison for the first time since her sentencing fifteen years earlier, Josie looks for answers about the murder Fay committed that tore her family apart and left her with only fragments of a memory of her childhood.

The action takes place exclusively within the prison, and the sparse staging focuses all of our attention on the conversation and revelations of mother and daughter. The sounds – those of prison life, as well as sound effects that evoke a memory – are possibly a little blatant and would benefit from more subtlety, though the dialogue is also underpinned in several places by an ominous low thrumming that is superbly effective in keeping us on edge. 

Christine Mackie as Fay deftly blurs the lines between surface appearances and what is going on underneath, showing us on the one hand a woman torn apart by the isolation of imprisonment and on the other a daydreamer determined to live her life through her daughter. Mackie captures Fay’s complexities with subtle and sometimes sudden changes of expression that take her from open and engaging to defensive and guarded in an instant. Though Fay is undoubtedly affectionate toward Josie, we never quite shake the sense that she is capable of manipulating and ultimately hurting her.

Lois Mackie’s Josie, on the other hand, is open-minded and optimistic, though completely out of her depth as far as the reality of her mum’s life in prison is concerned. Whereas Fay is realistic about her sentence and the life she is bound to have, Josie is idealistic and fanciful, striving to reach a version of her relationship with Fay that Fay herself – as well as the prison officers – know to be impossible. It is when this idealism boils over into frustration that Lois Mackie’s performance is especially effective, with her movement around the stage feeling organic and unrestrained in stark contrast to the restraint of the prison surroundings. Seeing even more of this movement would arguably have added an extra layer of dynamism to the production as a whole.

Overseeing their visits are two prison guards with their own complicated relationships with Fay and Josie. Jamie Smelt as George is personable and straightforward, hardened by years of working in the prison system rather than jaded by it. Ellaney Hayden’s Sheila is more emotional, wounded and disappointed by the recognition of her own flaws but nevertheless seeking to find a shared humanity with the prisoner she is charged to care for.

As the play unfolds, we see Josie’s uncertainty as she comes to terms with a mother and a version of her childhood that are completely at odds with her recollections. We witness the pieces of a life falling into place, and the distress that the chasm between hope and reality leaves behind. This is a riveting production that takes hold, keeping the audience with bated breath until the very last moment.

Iron plays at Home Manchester until Saturday 19 September. Tickets are available here.

Hannah Molyneux is a proudly Mancunian writer and musician whose day job revolves around community engagement. She is passionate about community arts and the huge benefits they have for people and places. Hannah can most often be found enjoying the great outdoors or optimistically crafting with her children. You can read more of her writing here. You can find her on Instagram here.