Parkway Dreams 2015: Here We Go Again!

As soon as you start rehearsing ‘Parkway Dreams', Simon Egerton's songs get stuck in your head.

‘Because the people are breeding
The cities are teeming'

It's early days at the Sir John Mills Theatre, where the cast of ‘Parkway Dreams' are in Day Two of rehearsals. Our ensemble are currently clustered around the piano with Robert Hazle, our Musical Director, learning harmonies:

‘Caught up in progress
Four towns from scratch'

We've read though the script and started exploring the detail of the text. Our play has two distinct elements: a London over-spill family, Mary, Jack and Peter, who move from the capital to a New Town in the 1970s, and the verbatim - extracts taken from interviews with those involved in or affected by the development of Peterborough into a New Town. We first produced and toured ‘Parkway Dreams' in spring 2013, half of our original cast have returned: Polly Nayler, Robert Jackson and Matt Ray Brown. For our other three, Ros Steele , Gareth Wildig and Robert Hazle, these past two days have been an immersion into the world of Development Corporations, why Thatcher didn't like New Towns and exactly what a Parkway is. (For the uninitiated, it's the main roads the circle and dive across Peterborough, and they do all look the same. Bracknell has roundabouts, Peterborough has Parkways.)

‘We've got people riding busses, we've got people in their cars
We've got people making fusses ‘bout the trains and where they are'

This October we're embarking on a New Town Tour, kicking off from our base in Ipswich before visiting Peterborough, Crawley, Bracknell, Corby, Harlow, Braintree, Hemel Hempstead, Thurrock, Luton - and Colchester (OK, so it's not all New Towns). We'll be bringing a show that is fun, energised and incredibly entertaining. All our cast multi-role, playing TV personalities from across the years, local councillors, politicians, residents of New Towns. They also sing, as evidenced in rehearsal today, dance - this will be proved or otherwise tomorrow - and play instruments in this two-act exploration of the New Town story. If you've ever moved to another part of the country, been a teenager, had a family, expressed dismay at political choices or enjoyed The Clangers or Crackerjack (‘Crackerjack!') ‘Parkway Dreams' has something for you.

‘Parkway Dreams
Parkway Dreams
Is this what it seems?'

The songs are sounding good. You might not know the words but you will most certainly recognise some of the tunes...

See the Eastern Angles website for our tour dates and venues.