REVIEW: Carrying David, Newcastle Theatre Royal

Seconds out… and it’s another winner

Micky Cochrane as Glenn McCrory

There’s no doubt Glenn McCrory had the crowd on his side when he won his 1989 world cruiserweight title in Stanley since much of it comprised friends and neighbours.

You can still hear their shouts of encouragement.

You sensed the same supportive vibe when Micky Cochrane took to the Theatre Royal stage to tell the boxer’s story – or rather enact it, right from early school days to his most famous bout in the ring at the Louisa Centre.

I’ve no idea how Glenn McCrory slept after winning his title. How do you sleep after going 12 rounds with a boxer nicknamed The Killer (Patrick Lumumba), whether you win or not?

But I bet Micky slept well on Saturday. He was “knackered”, he said, at the end of the matinee performance of Carrying David. And he had to do it all over again in a few hours’ time.

Still, the standing ovation must have made the adrenalin surge.

It’s great to see, yet again, a North East story told by North East people on a stage mostly given to big shows from elsewhere.

And while this may lack the big cast and flashy sets, it is a terrific and engrossing story, real life but reminiscent of those sporting comic strip tales many of us grew up with - Roy of the Rovers or Alf Tupper, the ‘tough of the track’.

It’s told, for the most part, on a pretty spartan stage, just a single table and stool to one side with a screen overhead.

It opens with McCrory telling an interviewer of his ungilded upbringing, sharing a bed with one of his five siblings – who became six when the family adopted a young orphan.

This was David whose name is recalled in the name of the play, taken by playwright Ed Waugh from McCrory’s autobiography, and whose photo appears on the screen above the stage – along with many of the famous boxers his brother shared a ring with.

We learn that Glenn resented him at first, the young imposter who made him late for school because of his limp, an undiagnosed early symptom of Friedreich’s ataxia.

When Glenn decided to piggyback him to school, a bond quickly developed. Nobody had held David before, or showed him any real affection. It made them both laugh.

They came to share a passion for boxing, watching famous bouts on cine reels. David gleefully followed Glenn’s career, putting newspaper clippings in a scrapbook.

And when Glenn was at his lowest ebb, beholden to a dodgy manager and nearly always broke, it was David’s example, cheerfully defying the odds to stay alive, that spurred him to his greatest triumph.

In Glenn’s mind, it was David who was the greatest fighter.

Micky Cochrane with the face of Patrick ‘The Killer’ Lumumba

The action of the play is divided into rounds, like a boxing match. The last ‘round’, with a splendid boxing ring filling the stage, covers the 12 actual rounds of the big fight, Cochrane describing the action while also going through the motions.

It’s a story that’ll suck you in, whether you’re into boxing or not.

The best commendation I can offer is that every time the actor took a sucker punch from his invisible opponent, people near me in the audience actually gasped.

Now tell me that’s not the mark of a show worth seeing!

At the final bell everyone who was able was up on their feet, applauding Micky and by association Glenn and David and a success story from a place where success is more often than not hard won.

Micky (as Glenn) will be climbing into the ring one more time – assuming he’s fit to ‘fight’ – for the remaining performance on Sunday, June 24 at 4pm. Buy tickets, if there are any left, via the Theatre Royal box office.