Cast Set For BRIGHT LIGHTS OVER BENTILEE at The Dipping House

Claybody Theatre has announced full casting for their forthcoming stage première of Deborah McAndrew’s new play Bright Lights Over Bentillee.

Bright Lights Over Bentilee’s cast will feature Jack Wilkinson (Macbeth, Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre, King Lear, Northern Broadsides and as Arron Baylis in Holby City, BBC) as Sidney Kettle; Kymberley Cochrane (Billie The Kid, Vaudeville Theatre) as Jean Mellor; Polly Lister (Animal Farm, Bolton Octagon/Derby Theatre & Hull Truck Theatre and Around the World in 80 Days, Bolton Octagon) as Beverley Alcock; Ava Ralph (40 Elephants, Stowaway Theatre) as Sylvia Alcock ; Phil Corbitt (Calendar Girls, UK Tour and Kinky Boots, Storyhouse Chester ) as Albert Ferry and Eddy Westbury (Tom, Dick & Harry, New Vic Theatre and The Comedy about A Bank Robbery, West End) as Michael, as well as a community cast.

Directed by Conrad Nelson (One Man, Two Guvnors, New Vic Theatre) Bright Lights Over Bentilee is inspired by real events on 2 September 1967, when 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."

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

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