Sky’s the limit for Edgy winner

The people of Sheffield clearly have a great love for Standing at The Sky’s edge, the superb musical featuring music and songs by Richard hawley (left).

The show, which returns to the city’s crucible Theatre in November for a six-week season, has been selling advance seats like gangbusters.

Sky’s edge, set in Sheffield’s iconic but brutalist ‘streets in the sky’ Park hill estate, will run from November 30 through to January 9.

hawley and book writer chris Bush, both Sheffield natives, are working with director Rob hastie (who is also the artistic chief of the Sheffield Theatres) and choreographer lynne Page on slight revisions — including the addition of another of hawley’s songs — for the forthcoming production.

The original storyline followed the disparate residents who lived in one of the flats from the 1960s to 2016. The plan now, however, is for it to continue on to the December 2019 election, in which Boris Johnson won a landslide.

The show, which is all about a sense of community, is perfectly suited to our times. So it’s fitting that its producer, Rupert lord, has done a deal with the National Theatre, which will transfer it to its structure on the South Bank later in January — though dates could change because of the upheaval caused by the coronavirus lockdown.

even so, it’s vital that Sky’s edge, with hawley’s haunting songs, should be seen by a larger audience. it won several awards — most recently honours at The Stage newspaper’s The Stage awards (for which i was a juror).