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Belgrade Theatre, Coventry **** Back in the heady days of 1977, the Queen’s Silver Jubilee, tank tops, kipper ties and flares, we were newly confirmed members of the EEC and punk was just around the corner, a group of revolutionaries set up an estate agency in Hammersmith, London for squatters. Their main focus is the thousands of empty
council properties that are uninhabitable. Who knows how much is truth
and how much fiction but it makes a great story and a great musical. There are a few resonances to 2021, there is a
housing crisis and a three-day week caused by oil price hikes, the
Wilson government is in deep crisis, no pandemic though and Coventry is
unrecognisable. The Ruff Tuff Cream Puff Estate Agency is part of
the City of Culture Festival of Homelessness, with a community choir
adding voice, literally, to calls for ‘real change’. The central characters are John ‘Mad Dog’ Sky, a poet and overworked leader with a serious drink problem, also running a newsletter and Rebel Radio; and Lu newly arrived in London from Coventry after an abusive relationship plus her friend Ali who intend to set up a female rock band.
The other Ruff Tuff volunteers welcome them and
they in turn volunteer to work in the agency and find homes for as many
homeless as they can with some really inventive thinking that allows the
Greater London Council to buy into their housing crisis solutions until
there is less need for the service.
I enjoyed the show and its message wasn’t lost on
me. The undertow of the story, the number of women forced into
homelessness because of abusive relationships, as in Lu’s case, was
sensitively handled. If I have a criticism, I was right at the back and
it was often difficult to hear dialogue and impossible to hear lyrics.
But this is a great show that I think has a life beyond a Festival of
Homelessness.
Jane Howard 12-10-21 |
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