Today The Streets Are Ours
Play with Music | Royal Exchange Theatre | 2023
Written by Joshua Val Martin | Directed by Amy Hailwood
Whose streets are they really? And who on earth is BÔF?
The Spark
While living in East Manchester, Joshua kept noticing the same graffiti tag on walls and bridges between Beswick and Ancoats. BÔF became the starting point for an original comedy commissioned and produced by the Royal Exchange Theatre.
The Play
The play follows Madge, an eccentric older woman easily dismissed by those around her, and Kieran, a young man wondering whether his future means leaving the neighbourhood.
Their unlikely friendship turns a local mystery into a story about how to take ownership of a place you call home.
Making It With East Manchester
Music made by groups across M11 was part of the commission. Joshua joined their rehearsals and played alongside them, using it as an opportunity to have informal encounters about the area, that’d go onto shape the fictional characters and world.
The production paired professional actors with East Manchester community musical ensembles. Joshua worked with the groups to weave their performances into the play, whilst recorded contributions allowed people who could not appear live to still be part of the project.
Production
Today The Streets Are Ours was performed on 11–12 August 2023 in The Den, the Royal Exchange’s mobile theatre, at the East Manchester Academy in Beswick.
Epilogue
After finishing the play, Joshua met the real BÔF by chance along a canal mid-tagging. Joshua told him what his tag had inspired. BÔF shared the production online, and asked to remain anonymous.
Selected credits
Kieran - Gabriel Clarke
Madge - Jo Mousley
Director - Amy Hailwood
Dramaturg - Suzanne Bell
Producer - Sam Redway
Stage Manager - Jay Green
read an extract
Kieran has secretly begun spraying the mysterious BôF tag around East Manchester. Madge, who has made it her mission to remove it, doesn't know he is responsible. She puts him to work scrubbing one of the tags from the wall.
MADGE.
Why don’t you come here and give us a hand?
It’s okay. He won’t bite.
SNUGGLES growls a little.
MADGE.
Snuggles?
Be nice to the young man.
KIERAN.
Kieran.
MADGE.
Well, Kieran.
I’m Margaret.
But I suppose you’ll know me as Madge.
Which is okay.
It’s better to be known for something, than forgotten for nothing.
Here, take this brush -
My arms are hurting.
KIERAN begins washing off his BôF tag on the carpet shop.
MADGE.
It used to be a carpet shop this, you know.
Over a decade ago, though, so I doubt you’ll remember it.
KIERAN.
I do.
Just.
MADGE.
It was the carpet shop of East Manchester
The guy that ran it, Greg, ever such a nice man
He’d import the stuff… from Rawtenstall
The old carpet would have more wool in it but, as is the way of the world:
Sugar free Coke. Electronic cigarettes. Synthetic carpets.
Nothing’s real anymore…
And anyway people shop online so I think that’s why it closed in the end
But you can’t match going into a shop
Greg had a real eye for colours and patterns
He didn’t need to look in your house, no
He’d work you out with chit chat.
Get a feel for what you didn’t know you wanted
KIERAN.
I know
MADGE.
Oh really?
Did you have one of his?
KIERAN.
Every floor in the house is covered in his stuff
MADGE.
Most people round here did, at one time.
To think how many people’s floors are covered in his work
KIERAN.
Greg was my Dad
MADGE.
Never!
Fancy that, us being here.
Someone did say he eventually had kids…
How’s he doing?
KIERAN.
Dead
MADGE.
I always find it helps to do figure eights when cleaning off paint
KIERAN.
Very dead
MADGE.
That’s usually the way it is…
Are you alright?
KIERAN.
What was he like, working in the shop?
MADGE.
Everything I said:
Bonny bloke.
Knew all the comings and goings on the street…
Look, I didn’t know him well or anything, but -
he loved what he did from what I could tell…
Had a proper passion for it.
KIERAN.
And?
MADGE.
And…
Well, what’s more to say?
That’s right, lad - Kieran -
He just loved doing his…
Art.
KIERAN.
Art?
MADGE.
I suppose it was a sort of art, wasn’t it?
KIERAN.
Art?
MADGE.
Or decoration? A craft?
KIERAN.
You’re right:
Art.
MADGE.
Bringing character into people’s homes.
KIERAN.
That’s what I’m going to do.
I’m going to be like him.
Be something.
Do art…
MADGE.
How about a bit of cleaning up first?