‘The crowd are there for the crashes’: how a play performed on a racetrack became a smash with banger racers

‘When you’re in the car, you forget about everything’ … racer Caitlin Emery, left, with Millie Faraway, who plays Maddy Kneebone in The Kneebone Cadillac. Photograph: Steve Tanner

Lexi Crosbie was five days old when she went to her first ever banger race. “I grew up around the track,” the 14-year-old says. At nine, her racer dad gave her a chance at the Micro F2s, the junior league, and Crosbie has been racing ever since. “You’re so filled with adrenaline,” she says of the motorsport. “It’s the best feeling ever.”

This month, Crosbie went to her local Cornish track, United Downs Raceway (also known as St Day), for a different kind of event. The Kneebone Cadillac, Carl Grose’s raucous play about a banger racer and her family, is set and performed on the track. For Crosbie, it was her first ever theatre show. “I really enjoyed it,” she says. “My whole family did.” Director Kyla Goodey has loved seeing how many racers have come along, when theatre isn’t part of their regular lives. “It’s been a bridging of worlds,” she says. “That’s exactly what we wanted.”