A play written by and starring local residents is to return for the third time to tell the story of their community.
Meadows to Meaders, which turns the streets of Southmead into a stage, is a play about the history and stories of the Bristol neighbourhood. It is now looking for local young people to get involved - either backstage or in front of the audience.
The play has been performed twice before - the first time in 2016 and again in 2019 - but plans to create a third version have been scuppered by Covid for the past year or so.
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Billed as Southmead’s ‘very own community soap opera’, the Meadows for Meaders story follows the creation of the North Bristol suburb, and some of the well-known tales and developments along the way.
The play has always involved all the generations of Meaders - and this year’s production is looking for young people to play a part.
This week and next, the organisers are looking for young people to get involved, with a couple of taster sessions at The Ranch youth club on Tuesday, February 8 and February 15 from 3.30pm to 5.30pm.
“Whether you’ve always loved drama and dream of performing on the big stage, or prefer the idea of a smaller, non-speaking role but still being a part of something, then our free, fun drama taster sessions are for you,” organiser Ruth Myers said.
The play was one of Bristol’s big cultural events of 2016 and 2017 when it was first staged, with the backing of the Old Vic, the council’s culture team, the Arts Council and the Southmead Development Trust.
The soap opera begins in the 1930s when people were moved from all over Bristol to 1,500 new-build homes on what was then the outskirts of the city, said Ruth.
“They were moved as a result of slum clearance, overcrowding, there were medical conditions, and they moved out of the city and into the countryside.
"And this is still living memory for many people, there were many generations who stayed in Southmead and we wanted to capture those stories,” she added.
The soap opera play took shape after a long period of talking to people from Southmead about their memories from the 1930s to the 1980s. That involved a year or more of youngsters from Orchard Secondary School interviewing older residents of Southmead of their memories of growing up there.
“The idea for the show is that there’s a fake radio station, and it can tune in between different eras, so we start with an episode from the 1930s, we hear the episode of our fictional soap opera ‘Meadows to Meaders’,” explained scriptwriter Bea Roberts, back in 2017.
“And then the radio retunes and we hear little bits of maybe the news, bits of adverts from that period, and then we go forward and then we have an episode from the 1940s, where the war is on. Then we retune the radio again, and we come up in the 50s, and we see how the Meadows to Meaders children are now growing up and dating and being Teddy Boys," she added.
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