Road
Leeds Playhouse

THE HALLMARKS that brought Jim Cartwright to national prominence with The Rise and Fall Of Little Voice are all there in his debut play Road.

[[{"fid":"6724","view_mode":"inlineright","fields":{"format":"inlineright","field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]":"Road-runner: Lladel Bryant as DJ Bisto (Pic: Kirsten McTernan)","field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]":false},"link_text":null,"type":"media","field_deltas":{"1":{"format":"inlineright","field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]":"Road-runner: Lladel Bryant as DJ Bisto (Pic: Kirsten McTernan)","field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]":false}},"attributes":{"alt":"Road-runner: Lladel Bryant as DJ Bisto (Pic: Kirsten McTernan)","class":"media-element file-inlineright","data-delta":"1"}}]]Premiered in 1986, and set in a working-class northern town decimated by the Thatcher government, it's largely written as a series of monologues, with roguish narrator Scullery (Joe Alessi) introducing the road’s inhabitants on Hayley Grindle’s split-level stage.

He's the thread of continuity for a patchwork of lives that initially jar in tone, with the ensemble of 10 actors portraying teenagers getting ready for a night out, a darkly comic skinhead turned Buddhist and a poignant elderly woman who struggles with fading memories.