30 September – 1 October
As a child of the post-punk late 1970s and early eighties, I was excited by the premise of New Dawn Fades, a tantalising and long-overdue biopic treatment exploring the origins of one of the Manchester music scene’s most influential bands, Joy Division. Here, I hoped, would be a poignant and powerful chronicle of the all-too-short life of Ian Curtis, dead at 23 but leaving behind a musical legacy which lives on and which has found new audiences and fans in the post-millennial generations. Unfortunately, even a strong performance from Josh Lonsdale as Curtis fails to elevate this production, one which, like the band itself in its early years, struggles to find its true identity.
Director and writer Brian Gorman’s play debuted back in 2013 at Manchester’s Fringe Festival to a warm, local reception. It provides, after all, interesting snippets of Mancunian social history as well as exploring the genesis of Joy Division. A reboot for this current tour sees Lauren Greenwood, who doubles as Curtis’ wife Debbie, as co-director at the helm of a new cast which includes actor-musicians and songwriters. Gorman is an accomplished and award-winning writer too.
Gorman himself plays impresario Tony Wilson, initially a television journalist with Granada TV before co-founding the iconic Factory Records, who proceeds to narrate the tale of the various band members who are drawn together by a shared love and admiration of the rebellious, anti-establishment bands of the punk era, most notably the Sex Pistols. However, the first act is surprisingly, unexpectedly and somewhat incongruously funny, largely due to some comic multi-rolling from supporting cast members Kivan Dene and Nicholas Eccles as the show opts for laughs over more serious themes which, we sense, the second act will explore, much like the narrative structure and style of Willy Russell’s Blood Brothers which so artfully juxtaposes humour and tragedy. And yet this never comes. Gorman’s ad-libbing, Alan Partridge-style game-show-host routine quickly wears thin in the second half as the play at best, glosses over, and at worst, trivialises the powerful and poignant elements of Curtis’ story: his failed marriage, his epilepsy, his strong feelings of inadequacy, his mental health battles. It feels like a missed opportunity.
The production is redeemed considerably by Lonsdale, who conveys not just the persona and appearance of Curtis to such realistic effect, but who also sounds uncannily like him in three of Joy Division’s best-known numbers, including a rousing finale. Somewhat bafflingly amongst a cast of talented musicians, he is the only one to perform live. It is a poor homage to such an influential and talented band. A lack of 70s realism is compounded by the fact that in considering the aesthetic of the production, little thought seems to have been given to authentic costumes of the period either.
It is worth noting that tonight’s performance was beset by numerous technical problems which did little to help the flow, yet even without these hiccups, the show is disjointed and lacking in coherence. Greenwood is under-used, her character undeveloped, Gaz Hayden’s Peter Hook is reduced to uttering loud profanities at every opportunity and there are some agonising gaps between scenes which make the show feel overly long. For me, one of the highlights of the evening actually came before the performance when visiting the Everyman’s Irving Studio Theatre to view the Joy Division Equipment and Ephemera Collection which is well worth the extra ten minutes. Judging by the number of punk and post-punk T-shirts in the audience tonight, there were more music lovers than theatre lovers present, many of whom seemed to go home happy. For this reviewer, who loves both, New Dawn Fades falls short on both counts.
★★☆☆☆ Tony Clarke 1 October 2025
