The underclass finds a voice in Sheffield

The Arbor
Sheffield Crucible
Rating *

Lyn Gardner
Thursday 7 June 2001

A

ndrea Dunbar told it straight from the heart. She told it how it was. How it was was pretty awful if you were 17, pregnant, battered and living on the Buttershaw Estate near Bradford. Her autobiographical slice of life, The Arbor, produced at the Royal Court in 1980, has never been seen outside London; 11 years after Dunbar's death at the age of 28, Sheffield Theatres are righting that wrong.

This is not a sophisticated piece of theatre, but 20 years on Dunbar's voice still rings out clear and true. She recounts the violence of family life, her two teenage pregnancies and escape from the boyfriend who used her as a punchbag; the last scene of the play shows The Girl (also referred to as Andrea) sitting on her bed in a battered-women's refuge and opening a notebook to start to write.

This is much more than a northern slice of EastEnders. Its presence in Sheffield in election week is a reminder of the forgotten Britain that Tony Blair himself has referred to as the "underclass", which New Labour fails to give voice to. It is a reminder that Britain has the highest teenage pregnancy rate in Europe. On Tuesday night it also provided a reminder that some things haven't changed: as characters on stage poured racial abuse on "Pakis", race riots were taking place in Leeds, 40 miles away. That is how relevant this play is - a play written 20 years ago by a teenager and penned not with bitterness but exuberance.

Hayden Griffin's design relocates the play to a block of flats, which lends a useful spatial dimension to the drama, and Anna Mackmin's production cleverly evokes all the bustle of a large estate, from barking dogs to gymslip mums pushing buggies. And there is a cracking central performance of unselfconscious feisty charm from Kate Crossley.

Mackmin's attempts to push at the play's naturalistic boundaries don't always work, particularly in the big fight scene between estate residents and police. It is too chaotic and not sufficiently comic-aggressive. But the final choreographed sequence poignantly points up the impossibility of estate life both for Andrea and all the latterday Andreas.

This is 80 minutes that sings off the stage, curiously upbeat rather than depressing and funny-sad rather than tragic. At its heart is Dunbar herself - bright, lippy, desperate and full of untapped potential.

THE GUARDIAN