Oldham Coliseum Theatre has today announced full casting for their forthcoming revival of Jim Cartwright’s (Rise and Voice of Little Voice) powerful play Road.
Road’s cast will feature Richard J Fletcher (Much Ado About Nothing, Northern Broadsides and various pantomimes at Oldham Coliseum Theatre) as Scullery; Paula Lane (Kylie Platt in Coronation Street) as Lane; Will Travis (Mr Squires in This is England 86, 88 & 90, Channel 4 as well appearing as Dick Lampard in Where the Heart is and Neil Beckett in Coronation Street, both ITV); John Askew (Rita, Sue and Bob Too, Out of Joint and Turkey, Oldham Coliseum Theatre) as Joey/Eddie; as Professor/Jerry; Zoe Iqbal (The Importance of Being Earnest, Dukes Theatre and Lawrence Batley Theatre) as Louise; Shaban Dar (As You Like It, Northern Broadsides & tour) as Skin Lad/Barry/Louise’s brother; Alyce Liburd (Now is Good, Storyhouse, Chester and Four Minutes Twelve Seconds, Oldham Coliseum Theatre) as Clare, Kofi Dennis (The Wiz, Hope Mill Theatre) as Bisto/Blowpipe; and Claire Storey (Adrian Mole The Musical, Queen’s Theatre, Hornchurch and The Railway Children, Hull Truck Theatre) as Molly/Helen,
They say it’s grim up north, and sometimes they’re right. But worry not dear friends, because our well-oiled narrator Scullery will look after you.
This is Road, 1987. There’s no jobs and little hope but there’s a party to go to that’ll take you from the gutter to the stars and back again. Step into the homes of the residents of this Lancashire street and witness real life lived to the extremes, where there’s nowhere left to fall but into a little light relief.
Lancashire playwright Jim Cartwright’s debut play mixes humour and pathos to portray an all-too-relevant tale of deprivation and the extraordinary resilience of the human spirit. Road first premiered at the Royal Court Theatre in London in 1986 and staged there again in 2017. In 1988 it was produced at the Lincoln Centre in New York featuring in its cast Kevin Bacon and Joan Cusack. Now considered a modern classic, Road won The George Devine Award, The Plays and Players Award, Drama Magazine Award and The Samuel Beckett Award, and was voted the third best play of the 1980s and in the top 50 best plays in the history of theatre.
Directed by Gitika Buttoo (Love N Stuff, Oldham Coliseum, The Jungle Book at Grosvenor Park Open Air Theatre and staff director on The Father and the Assassin, National Theatre) opens at Oldham Coliseum Theatre from 16 September – 1 October.
For more information and tickets for Road visit www.coliseum.org.uk
