Steel city show is a tour de force

HALFWAY through Standing At The Sky’s Edge, a show by Chris Bush set in the brutalist Park Hill flats in Sheffield, with fabulous music and lyrics by Richard Hawley, there is a fleeting reference to what I now know to be Henderson’s Relish.

A character remarks on the spicy sauce to Alex Young, who plays a woman who has fled London to live in the flats.

During the interval at the Crucible Theatre, the gentleman sitting next to Mrs B explained that the condiment is known locally as Enderson’s (you drop the H) and boasted that it’s ‘Sheffield’s finest’.

So is Standing At The Sky’s Edge. The story, about the various occupants of one flat from the time the estate came into use in 1960 to the present day, is universal. There is a special place in my heart for theatre that tackles how we live in Britain, as this does. It is expertly directed by Robert Hastie and choreographed by Lynne Page. The cast, including Young, Robert Lonsdale, Rebecca Wooding, Adam Hugill, Fela Lufadeju and Faith Omole (both pictured right), are superb.

Rupert Lord, who spent six years developing it, said ideally he would like to take it on tour to cities such as Manchester, Glasgow and Birmingham. But then it deserves a place on the National’s Olivier main stage. It is one of the best theatre productions of the year so far.