A hard day's night on the edge of a depressed Lancashire town, Jim Cartwright's defiantly epic play attacks Margaret Thatcher's England with a drama peopled by roughs, toughs, boozers, lovers and losers. Like down and dirty Dickens.

An exemplary cast of 13 played the hell out of some two dozern characters. The show was staged in a warehouse space housed in a former factory, which made for a fitting locale.

Canadian Premiere at the Liberty Street Theatre, Parkdale

“Raw but powerful...Two tips of the hat to director Jon Michaelson for presenting another worthwhile contemporary play and for staging it in dynamic fashion…the results rarely fail to be intelligent, committed and theatrical.”

Robert Crew, The Toronto Star

“Michaelson has a genuine talent for eliciting first class work from actors...

Most of this company are young, but all of them perform with impressive physical freedom, and their timing has been honed to the fraction of a second.

...The rough theatre effect is just what this play requires…It’s the kind of play Tarragon and Passe Muraille used to do before they got respectable.”

Ray Conlogue, The Globe & Mail

“The opening startles in its spontaneity. Late-comers to the show are maligned and jeered at by Road's main voice, Scullery (played to Drunken Poet perfection by Hugo Dann), effectively tying the audience in for the ride. The entire play- house serves as the stage, with even the intermission acting as a comic interlude. Throughout the performance the audience is continually shocked and awakened by the sheer vitality of this theatrical method, to say nothing of its contents. “

Scott Cowie, The Varsity, U of T.

PRODUCTION CREDITS

Directed by JM

Set Design: Darin Olson

Lighting: Stephen Plotkin

Executive Producer: Marcus Bruce

CAST

Caroline Barrett,  Bruce Beaton, Leanne Brody, Jennifer Capraru, Christine Cox, Hugo Dann, Mathew Heaney, Deborah Lambie, Murray Oliver, Dan Sampson, Rosalie Shackleton, Janet Snetsinger, Jonathan Tanner