Andy Routledge directs 60 Miles by Road or Rail opening in Northampton this September, examining the legacy of New Towns. Using real life testimony and local stories, the show brings to life the impact of the government’s New Towns Act on Northampton communities.
Despite a thousand years of history, Northampton was designated a New Town in 1968 as part of the government’s masterplan for post-war revitalisation. The newly formed Development Corporation taskforce were instructed to expand the town across twenty momentous years. The Corporation went to hilarious lengths to ensure targets were met, even adapting their radio jingle ‘only sixty miles by road or rail’ into a legendary pop record.
60 Miles by Road or Rail is at Royal & Derngate Wednesday 22nd – Saturday 25th September 2021. Tickets are on sale here.
You’re directing 60 Miles by Road or Rail, what can you tell us about the production?
The production is about a taskforce that entered into an experimental partnership with Northampton’s local council to double the town’s population. It explores what their legacy is 50 years later and how the trajectory of Northampton changed as a result.
The show’s title takes its name from the record they unexpectedly released to try and sell Northampton’s proximity to London. It’s a fast, vibrant and highly political play that covers 20 years. Whilst it places Northampton’s story at its heart, it’s a state of the nation play about the conflicts between local and central government and the impact this has on our local communities, all whilst offering audiences a great night out.
This is the culmination of a yearlong community project, how have the learnings from that project influenced your direction of the play?
The community work has had a fundamental effect on the play’s direction. When we first started on the project back in 2018, we knew very little about Northampton’s New Town story as these were our parents’ and grandparents’ experiences and stories rather than our own.
We spoke with over a hundred people and gradually built up a fuller picture of what this period was like for the town and the country. It was fascinating hearing vastly different experiences of the same events, and it was at this moment I realised the dramatic potential of the project.
Across 2021 we’ve continued with intergenerational arts, heritage and community work. This has included making a documentary film, capturing oral histories and a photography project of people currently living in the estates that were built 50 years ago.
The documentary and oral histories have been hugely informative as they’ve provided us a rich and nuanced understanding of how people experienced the town change first-hand. The photography project (in which we commissioned award-winning photographer Christian Sinibaldi) has provided us a better understanding of the legacy of the estates and the lives of people who are living in them today. The community work has reiterated that this is a true story and that it’s complex. People have very strong opinions about Northampton’s New Town expansion, both positive and negative.
What’s impressed you the most about the way Ryan Leder has written the play using real life testimony and local stories?
Ryan has weaved all the research, real life testimonies and his own passions together absolutely brilliantly. This is a play that balances a lot of material that could be quite dense in someone else’s hands, but Ryan has kept the script playful, energetic and hugely relevant to an audience in 2021. It’s not a verbatim play, and Ryan doesn’t reference real people directly, but uses fictional characters as a way to tell this big story. It’s a magnificent, dynamic achievement and I’m so delighted that I get to direct it!
What do you think will surprise audiences the most about this play?
I think audiences will be surprised how detailed the production is. Both in its research and also in its exploration of its themes and characters. There is a lot to mine in the play, and the beauty of having a four-week rehearsal process (the first that I’ve ever had) is that we’re able to fully commit to this depth of detail.
As we discovered in our lengthy research and community processes, this is a massive story that we could have told in broad brushstrokes. The play has a great sense of pace and momentum (just like the Development Corporation did when they doubled the town’s population!) but we’ve placed the emphasis on the characters and their relationships to each other during this momentous period of change.
Local audiences will get a huge amount from the frequent references we’re making to Northampton in relation to their own lives, but I’m confident the play will resonate strongly with anybody who has a complex relationship with their hometown. I think people will be surprised by how universal it is.
Tell us about the cast and what you’re enjoying most about working with them?
The cast are wonderful! They’re all local to Northampton which was really important to me when we started the project. This enables them to have a a unique relationship to the story and a particular depth and investment to their exploration. On the first day of rehearsals, we created a Venn diagram that covered the past events of the play, the present day, and who we are as local residents.
For me the play is at its most electric in that central segment of the diagram, when the ‘then’, ‘now ‘and ‘us’ are all speaking to each other. We’re passionate about this past period of the town, but we’re also using it as a platform to explore our hometown today and our personal relationships to it as local residents.
Throughout the broader project we’re trying to cultivate a more energised and dynamic scene for local professionals in Northamptonshire. To provide local actors paid work and a chance to make work on the mainstage of their local theatre is fantastic. The cast is one of the most dedicated, hard-working and naturally gifted group I’ve worked with. I can’t wait for audiences to see how great they all are.
What would you say to anyone thinking of coming to see 60 Miles by Road or Rail?
You should definitely come! The play is fast-paced, political and loads of fun. It’s the most theatrical play I’ve ever directed – you could only tell this story in a theatre to a live audience. It’s got a banging soundtrack inspired by the 1970s and 1980s and promises audiences (both local and national) a great night out.
