Bright Lights Over Bentilee review – UFO show lights up Stoke | theater

bThe most extraordinary thing about Bentilee in 1967 was its status as one of Europe’s largest council estates – at least until the night of September 2nd. The bright lights seen by dozens of people at the time had nothing to do with the surrounding industries, the potteries, mines and steel furnaces of Stoke-on-Trent. Eyewitnesses reported that “it looked like a saucer,” “it changed into different colors.” One admitted: “I was actually scared of it when it fell.”

Deborah McAndrew’s latest play begins and ends with this extraordinary event. In the tiny, bare-brick-walled former potter’s house that is the new home of the Claybody Theater (founded and run by McAndrew along with her husband and co-artistic director Conrad Nelson), the earth seems to shake, as if something sinister is about to start. Surprised locals stand before us, staring over our heads as if surveying the night sky behind the theater roof.

Satisfying science fiction effects are created by an experienced team of low-tech resources: Nelson (director), Dawn Allsopp (designer), Jo Dawson (lighting) and Scott Ralph (sound), but lights that descend from the stars , are not the real focus of this bizarre, funny and touching historical drama. Its purpose is to shed light on the “normal” lives of the “normal” people of Bentilee, the miners and clerks, the table ladies and salespeople. Ultimately, McAndrew’s story shows that people strive to socialize; It poses a challenge to one of the characters’ claims that humans exist in isolation, like planets in space.

In this well-staged production, Polly Lister shines as the matriarchal Beverley, Kymberley Cochrane as the outsider math genius Jean, Ava Ralph as her fierce cousin, Jack Wilkinson as the shy UFO enthusiast, Phil Corbitt as the outsider with secrets and Eddy Westbury as the mysterious, questioning strangers. No less outstanding are the other members of this 24-person cast: the community actors who play bingo, exercise in fitness class and watch UFOs.