CityLife

Maine Road

SARAH McDonald Hughes’ engrossing “Manchester story about football, family, bricks and mortar” has already been highly commended in the recent Alfred Bradley Bursary Awards and, as a result, she will receive a year's mentorship from a senior BBC radio producer.

It’s not hard to see why the BBC were so enthusiastic about the radio version of this play.

Set in 2003, at a time when Man City were playing the last few games at their stadium before it was bulldozed, the story follows Leo (Dan Fitzsimons), a football-crazy teenager, whose own life is collapsing, just like his beloved ground.

His grandma has just died, his absentee dad Clive (Thomas Aldersley) is always letting him down, and his mum Elaine (Marie Critchley) is taking refuge from her troubles in the bottle.

It’s left to elder sister Jade (played by Hughes herself) to try to hold everything together – not easy when the family is also about to be ousted from its home near the ground and local housing worker Donna (Francesca Waite) is too harried to do much about it.

Great stuff, with some tremendous performances.

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