BRIGHT LIGHTS OVER BENTILEE Comes to Claybody Theatre

Claybody Theatre has announced that this September it will be presenting the universal premiere of Deborah McAndrew’s (The Card, Claybody Theatre, and A Christmas Carol, Leeds Playhouse) new stage play Bright Lights Over Bentilee.

Directed by Conrad Nelson (One Man, Two Guvnors, New Vic Theatre) and performed at The Dipping House in Stoke on Trent from 27 September -12 October, Bright Lights Over Bentilee is inspired by real events over 50 years ago when dozens of people witnessed bright lights in the sky and a UFO landed in a field beside the Bentilee housing estate in Stoke-on-Trent.

1967 – a remarkable year! The Summer of Love, Sergeant Pepper, the launch of the QE2 and BBC Local Radio, Sandie Shaw wins The Eurovision Song Contest, and a flying saucer lands in Stoke-on-Trent…

Oh yes!

Dozens of witnesses saw a glowing, saucer-shaped craft touch down in a field beside the largest council estate in Europe, and for the characters in Claybody’s new drama, life will never be the same again.

Because of all the people on Planet Earth, the pottery folk of Stoke-on-Trent know a saucer when they see one!

On 2 September 1967, dozens of people witnessed bright lights in the sky and a UFO landing in a field beside the Bentilee housing estate. At the time this was the largest council estate in Europe, and today it remains a sprawling labyrinth of houses, churches, schools, shops, and community buildings.

In archive news footage from the time, several witnesses give their accounts of the incident. Local woman Mrs Bowen recalls: "It seemed like a saucer, you know. It changed in different colours - a red, a greenish and a blue. I did get frightened of it when it dropped."

Playwright, Deborah McAndrew, who has been researching with members of the community in Bentilee who remembered the incident said:  ‘Three things attracted me to this story – a UFO, the 1960s as a time period, and Bentilee. This corner if the city is much maligned and often misunderstood. I didn’t know it well before I started to research this play, but it’s an extraordinary place – more like a village than an estate – and the people I’ve met there have been really inspiring.’

Director, Conrad Nelson, added: “Science Fiction is a genre I love and at Claybody Theatre we like to create an immersive world for our audience to experience. It’s exciting to be adapting our atmospheric venue, The Dipping House, to suggest something that could literally be ‘out of this world’.

Bright Lights over Bentilee will premiere at The Dipping House in Stoke-on-Trent from 27 September – 12 October.

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