Living — family saga races through six decades in Sheffield

There is a trick in pantomime that Butler borrows: a rapid replay to bring the audience up to speed. His family saga does much the same, racing boldly and exhaustively through the last six decades, from 1969 and Neil Armstrong to 2020 and Covid, ending with the Barbie movie and Ukraine.

Seen through the lens of one Sheffield family in a council house in Burngreave, historically home to miners, steelworkers and immigrants, the play ticks off Vietnam, the winter of discontent, the Falklands, the stock market crash, Northern Rock and 9/11, with local nods to Cabaret Voltaire, Nick Clegg and the Arctic Monkeys.

It has the ambition of Our Friends in the North and a three-hour running time; we also register the arrival of VHS recorders, CDs and the iPod Mini.

living, family saga, sheffield, burngreave, council house, neil armstrong, covid, arctic monkeys, vhs, northern rock