ONE of the top plays of the 20th century will be the latest production by Essex University’s Theatre Arts Society this week,

And if you’re looking for a play which accommodates a lot of actors, then Jim Cartwright’s Road is a pretty good choice.

But that’s not the main reason director Dave Burn chose it.

“Well for a start,” he tells me, “it’s one of my favourite plays.

“Also, because I have to fit in rehearsals around the cast’s lectures, I needed something that was going to be easy to break down into pieces.

“Road is perfect, because it is made up of a whole bunch of scenes with no one character having more than 20 minutes on the stage.

“Last year I directed my first play for the Theatre Arts Society with the Real Inspector Hound. That just had a cast of nine and I really wanted to include a lot more members this time.”

But even with 24 actors to choose from, it still wasn’t quite enough to fill more than 30 roles which feature in the play.

“Some of them still have to double up,” Dave adds. “But a lot of them are pretty small parts. One of them is a mother’s voice which you only hear off stage.”

Produced in 1986, Road was Jim Cartwright’s debut play, which almost immediately catapulted him into the theatrical limelight.

Telling the various stories of the people who live in a derelict Lancashire street, it started off at the Royal Court, but was later adapted for television by legendary director Alan Clarke.

It even made its way to New York where the cast included Hollywood stars Joan Cusack and Kevin Bacon and was most recently voted in at number 36 in the National Theatre’s poll of the greatest plays of the 20th century.

Road
Lakeside Theatre,
Square 5, Essex University.
Thursday and Friday, 7.30pm.
£12, £8 concessions.
01206 873261
www.lakesidetheatre.org.uk