REVIEW: A Street Like This at Sunderland Fire Station

A Street Like This

Sunderland Fire Station

Thursday 30 June 2023

then on tour

Wednesday 27 September 2023, Jarrow Focus

Thursday 28 September 2023, Gosforth Civic Theatre, Newcastle

Friday 29 September 2023, Thornley Village Centre, Durham

Saturday 30 September 2023,The Tute, Cambois

Saturday 7 October 2023, Seventeen Nineteen, Sunderland

A play about a street? The thing is that many of us have lived down a street, had neighbours, people we see every day - so this is a common experience that we, as an audience, can relate to. The result is another collaboration between director Annie Rigby, writer Alison Carr and musician Ross Millard (who is one of the Futureheads).

Just like Free School Meals and Putting The Band Back Together, this show features both a professional cast and and a community cast working in harmony. The success in this model is that it feels like a professional show rather than am-dram.

The show is going on tour and Unfolding Theatre have need to develop a concept that can easily go to smaller venues and thus the set, and audience, are both sharing the Fire Station stage with the stage in traverse. That is the stage goes across the middle with rows of seats either side. The knock on effect is that the audience are very close to the action. This in turn creates a very intimate affair which works really well with the show.

Before the show starts there are members of the cast asking members of the audience to put their memories of living in a street on post-it notes which are then put on model houses. Some of these memories are then read out at the start - alongside, I imagine, some scripted memories from the cast themselves. Together they describe a street. The house with a motorbike outside that no one rides, the house with the pillars, the house with the curtains that never open, the house with an old settee outside - you know the sort of thing. This is about a common experience so the audience react/laugh as they recognise the similarities with their own experience. Certainly at the show I attended, this phase of the show was both quick and effective.

Then something happens. A street of strangers, that have nothing more in common than living next to each other, suddenly have something in common. This happens in real life. I remember the fire down my street that had everyone out, talking, making tea for the fireman, down my street - a collective experience that is part and parcel of having neighbours.

Alex Elliott plays the neighbour that takes control. The neighbourhood watch type that is first on the phone to the authorities to get them to deal with it. A man who has no problem with donning a hi-vis in order to be seen to take over. The commotion wakes up the neighbour, played by Karen Traynor, whose house is right next to the issue. Kylie Ann Ford is the neighbour that is less house proud than the others, the one that is still surrounded with the stuff from her parents that passed away. She sees the incident as an opportunity for change.

Around these central characters there are the rest of the neighbours and the band, under MD Ross Millard. The cast works well together - a sense of cohesion that is a result of careful direction from Annie Rigby and a relatable script from Alison Carr.

The show really works. The combination of characters that one cares about, in a story that we can relate to (even if we have not experienced it ourselves). In an hour you are taken on a journey - and once again Unfolding Theatre have created a show that stands out. This is a show I'd like to see at the local Fringe Festivals that have sprung up since the pandemic. [Long time readers will remember that it was Unfolding Theatre that created a show that had helped make my mind up to quit my "dream job" and ultimately start the Theatre Guide...10 years later we are both still here!]

Recommended.

Review: Stephen Oliver

Photos: Von Fox Promotions

Tickets:

Wednesday 27 September 2023, Jarrow Focus

Thursday 28 September 2023, Gosforth Civic Theatre, Newcastle

Friday 29 September 2023, Thornley Village Centre, Durham

Saturday 30 September 2023,The Tute, Cambois

Saturday 7 October 2023, Seventeen Nineteen, Sunderland

Tickets can be obtained from the productions website: https://www.unfoldingtheatre.co.uk/astreetlikethis