Date/Time: Wednesday, 8th May 2024 at 14:30
Location: Gillian Lynne Theatre, 166 Drury Lane, London, WC2B 5PW
Price: £55 per person. Member and guest £110. Face value £97pp
Event Organiser: Pete Wells. Flat 7, Wayfaring Court, Safflower Lane, Romford RM3 0LQ
The multi-award winning new musical Standing at the Sky’s Edge – winner of the Olivier Award for Best New Musical, UK Theatre Award for Best Musical Production and the South Bank Sky Arts Award – transfers to the West End following sold-out runs at the National Theatre and Sheffield Theatres.
Who would have guessed that a musical about Sheffield’s brutalist Park Hill housing estate could be so uplifting? Playwright Chris Bush has worked the stirring earworms of her fellow native, the much-feted singer-songwriter Richard Hawley, into a beguiling triple narrative covering the development’s utopian postwar conception, its demise in the Eighties and its 21st century yuppie rebirth.
Even after its journey down to London, this musical is still defiantly wedded to Sheffield, with jokes about the city’s two football teams and the inhabitants’ hatred of Leeds. Although the detail is local, the message about community, pride and the double-edged sword of gentrification is universal.
In 1960, we see sparky Rose and her affectionate but chauvinistic foreman husband Harry move gratefully from slum housing into these bright, airy “streets in the sky”. Almost three decades later, their son Jimmy clicks with Liberian refugee Joy in the now-scuzzy estate. Cut to 2015, and London professional Poppy is buying a flat in the now-refurbished, fashionable and futuristically telegenic block to escape her ex-fiancée Nikki. “Polish some concrete, gerrit on Doctor Who, and people think it’s nirvana,” as eye-rolling estate agent Connie puts it.
All three core stories are about love and aspiration, thwarted by internal tensions or external forces. There’s anger here about the Thatcherite destruction of northern industry but also ambivalence about Cool Britannia-style urban regenerations that involve social cleansing. Northern working-class culture is both celebrated and critiqued, especially when it comes to traditional gender roles.
Booking Cut-off
Booking cut-off is midday on 11th March or when all tickets are sold (whichever comes first).
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