CityLife

Bittersweet tale of summer

FOLLOWING their successful productions of Pretend You Have Big Buildings and Monster, the first and second prize winners in the Bruntwood Playwriting Competition, the Royal Exchange is now staging the third prize winner in the competition, Phil Porter's The Cracks In My Skin.

Set in the school holidays of a stifling hot summer, this bittersweet play has its World Premiere at the Royal Exchange studio on Wednesday.

It chronicles the unlikely family set-up of four very different and very lonely people. Janie, a feral-like child is a force of nature, like a natural disaster zone.

School mate Linden is pushing away from his grandfather Roper, as punishment and resentment for the neglect he suffered at the hands of his drug-fuelled parents.

And then there's school teacher Josefa (played by Claire Cox, last seen at the theatre in Henry V), who sees her own hopes and dreams slipping through her fingers like grains of sand. As they cling to each other, will they eventually find the love and care they crave so desperately?

The Tempest

The production is directed by Chris Meads, who has been Assistant Director on the Royal Exchange's production of Henry V, The Tempest, Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf, Mary Barton and Cyrano De Bergerac, as well as Love And Money in The Studio.

"It actually wasn't until a few months after the presentation of the prizes that we started talking seriously about a production and Chris and I have been working quite closely together ever since," observes Phil. "It's quite luxurious to have a whole year to get a play into shape and it's improved a lot as a result, I feel."

Meanwhile, Phil has been working on a new play for Pentabus theatre - 'a Victorian ghost story meets high-school massacre' would be the Hollywood pitch, he laughs - but will be back in Manchester for the first night. "I'll be the one looking pale and shaky!"

The Cracks In My Skin is at the Royal Exchange Studio from Wednesday until Saturday, March 1.