This show finished on Saturday 01 March 2025, and this page is being kept for archival purposes only.
Tuesday 25 February - Saturday 01 March 2025
7/8/10
“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
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
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.