This show finished on Saturday 01 March 2025, and this page is being kept for archival purposes only.

Road

Dates

Tuesday 25 February - Saturday 01 March 2025

Venue

Bedlam Theatre

Price

7/8/10

Author

Jim Cartwright

Description

“God it stinks this road. Staleness, rot, stink, sex, drink, blood. There’s always been something wrong down here. It’s where things slide to but don’t drop off.”

We are delighted to bring you Jim Cartwright’s seminal 1986 work on hardship, loss, and togetherness. Allow yourself to be led by local guide Scullery through a series of fleeting vignettes, glimpses into the life of the road. A gritty yet heartwarming reflection on communities during the turbulent 1980’s, step back in time as we invite you to spend an evening with us, on our Road.

Please note: this production’s pre-show will start at 7pm with the show itself starting at 7:30pm

Cast and Crew

Team

Actor (Brink / Blowpipe) Will Grice

Actor (Carol / Linda) Amelia Duda

Actor (Eddie / Barry) Sam Gearing

Actor (Helen / Brenda) Gemima Iseka-Bekano

Actor (Jerry / Curt) El Mair

Actor (Joey / Brian) Andrew More

Actor (Louise / Chantal) Ava Godfrey

Actor (Manfred) Kiran Mukherjee

Actor (Molly / Lane) Ava Vaccari

Actor (Professor / Bald) Dylan Kaeuper

Actor (Scullery) Noah Sarvesvaran

Actor (Skin Lad / Soldier) Ben Black

Actor (Valerie / Dor) Megan Crutchley

Assistant Director (Spooky Steve) Dan Bryant

Assistant Stage Manager Lauralyn Gibson

Co-Sound Designer Ronan Lenane

Co-Sound Designer Freya Game

Costume Manager Millie Franchi

Director Moses Brzeski-Reilly

Foreman (Set Manager) Em Leites McPherson

Intimacy Director Františka Vosátková

Lighting Assistant Sophie Bendon

Lighting Assistant Erin Keiller

Lighting Assistant Will Lewis

Lighting Assistant Aaron Rashid

Lighting Designer Miki Ivan

Producer Dia Hunter

Producer/Local Historian Alba McGowan

Production Manager Leon Lee

Roadman (Set Manager) Louis Taylor

Scaffy (Set Manager) Lucie Benninghaus

Set Assistant Carys Hrebenar

Set Assistant Ava Ausman

Set Assistant Elise Chan

Set Assistant Lily Goodchild

Set Assistant Non Steel

Set Assistant Tihani Binti Shahrudin

Set Assistant Trilby Baxter

Set Assistant Fiona Connor

Set Assistant Luca Stier

Set Assistant Zara Bathurst

Set Assistant Cat Chapman

Set Assistant Julitta Lee

Set Assistant Tea Milano

Set Assistant / Costume Assistant Danby Lee

Stage Assistant Louis Handley

Stage Assistant Lauryn McGuire

Stage Manager Meri Suonenlahti

Welfare Officer Alice Sikora

Review: Road -

Wednesday 05 March - By Honor Davis for The Student

This week, Bedlam bore witness to Road, a story following the community of a Northern mining town in Thatcher’s Britain. Traditionally performed on a promenade, this production transforms Bedlam into a time capsule of 1986. From the moment of your arrival, cast members run between queues of people loudly laughing and jeering, and even play darts in the bar (or as it is rechristened “The Millstone Pub”). Scullery, our mysterious, drunken “guide” throughout the play, shows us to our seats – even at one point managing a disgruntled audience member’s seating problem entirely in character. Directness and immediacy, you quickly realise, are central to the storytelling of Road.

The cast’s energy on nights out is punctuated by sobering monologues exploring the characters’ personal strife under the economic desertion synonymous with their time, as they battle to find joy and connection. This fight of contrasts is perfectly contained in the stand-out performances of Ava Vaccari, as both Molly and Lane: in one moment, she is the pub-crawling life of the party, and the next, a mumbling, wandering singleton, hilariously and tragically shuffling along the stage to make a cup of tea and sing to her teddy. Ben Black also provided an impressive and contrasting insight into the effects of hardship on a young person’s life. Holding the stage in a ranting monologue, he captivated the audience’s sympathies as he turned his anger on them. Black’s performance was decisively enhanced through lighting design by Miki Ivan, who added consistent dimension to the spacing of the stage, creating and destroying rooms, alongside impressions of a streetlight or interrogation light. The use of the gods in the theatre, by the cast, added an exciting element to the immersive staging, introducing new heights from which audience members were pointed out to be flirted with, or asked for a light at their own peril. The interval gave rise to an ’80s disco for the cast and audience put on by DJ Bisto (Ronan Lenane) – who brilliantly advertises his versatile jockeying skills with hip thrusts and a resumè of bar mitzvahs and funerals.

Director Moses Brzeski-Reilly’s Road offers commentary on the need for community in harsh times, a difficult tone, which is injected with unending energy and accuracy by the cast throughout. Each character has their moment of reflection, against the backdrop of economic abandonment, their protest against which is at times literal, but always present. Ultimately, however, it is Brzeski-Reilly’s direction which capitalises on the experiential, social relevance of this play, and pointedly turns a mirror on our own times.

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