Regeneration of the historic Spode site takes another exciting step forward this October as a disused pottery dipping house becomes the latest stage for a popular Stoke-on-Trent theatre company.
Fresh from its ground-breaking performances of Arnold Bennett’s The Card at Fenton Town Hall and the New Vic Theatre – which played to around 7,000 people – Claybody Theatre’s new show Song of the Sytch will be staged in refurbished industrial space at the Stoke-based venue, nightly, from October 4 to 14.
Tickets are already going fast for the new play from the pen of actor/director/writer Deborah McAndrew, who as well as The Card has brought successful shows including Ugly Duck, Dirty Laundry, The D-Road and Hot Lane to the stage in her adopted city.
Conrad Nelson directs again in what’s expected to be a sell-out.
The Sytch, where the action is based in 1938, was at that time an area of Westport Road between Burslem and Trubshaw Cross, which former Coronation Street-star Deb dubs “the dirtiest in Stoke-on-Trent”.
She teased the storyline at a packed launch event: “It’s September 1938. Neville Chamberlain has averted another catastrophic conflict in Europe, but there isn’t much peace at The Pelican – a pub in a poor part of Burslem known as The Sytch.
“While a Male Voice Choir practices in the back room, dirty deals are done in the cellars beneath; subversive ideas take root and forbidden love is kindling. As the world hurtles to the brink of war once more, a community finds it must pull together or fall apart.”
The stage set for the show will revolve around a bar in the fictional Pelican pub with working beer pumps.
On one evening Claybody, renowned for immersing audiences in the theme and period of its plays, will be staging a “lock in” after the show where the audience can enjoy a drink and songs from the Cor Bach Male Voice Choir (Midlands Choir of the Year Winner 2022).
To find out more visit www.claybodytheatre.com or pop into the Spode Museum, which is open Wednesday to Sunday, 10am to 4pm.
