Steel

Two lads. Twelve hours. One million pounds.

On the wet West Cumbrian coast, James and Kamran have been mates for more than a decade. At seventeen, the world should be theirs but Workington’s a ghost town – an unemployment blackspot where lasses drink Bacardi by the pint and boys don’t cry.

When James discovers he is heir to a single mile of the British railway system, the lads are forced on a town-wide treasure hunt where annihilated aunties, Snakebite-drenched drag queens and a zombie Princess Diana lay in wait. But who rightfully owns the mile of steel? Why is Kamran in such a strop? And what really happens in the pub down by the docks?

In a town once rich with coal seams and ore, with community and carnivals, with sea air and ale, James and Kamran are fed up with feeling different – tonight they’re painting the town technicolour and asking what it means to be a man in a play about first loves, forging identities and the wild, wild hearts of teenage boys.

This brand new play by Lee Mattinson is produced by Theatre by the Lake and after its premiere in Keswick will tour around community spaces in West Cumbria.