Bradford’s Freedom Studios has a wandering remit that inhabits some fairly unorthodox spaces. The Mill repopulated an abandoned textile factory; Home Sweet Home investigated the crisis in care for the elderly; now they have created a homage to daily life at the city’s transport hub.
Writer Rav Sanghera characterises the Interchange as “one of Bradford’s great unsung theatres”. To be honest, I’d have to rank it among my least favourite railway stations; but there are a host of people who keep this unlovely concrete warren ticking over and Sanghera seems to have talked to most of them, weaving their stories into an interlinked series of playlets that take place everywhere from windy platforms to waiting buses.
One of Sanghera’s discoveries was the extent to which cleaning staff are often prevailed upon as a counselling service to the general public. One episode transforms the ladies loos into a kind of secular confessional – a parallel that becomes more apparent when the woman who emerges from the cubicle turns out to be a priest. It’s concise, unexpected and insightful.
Not every segment is quite as successful: there’s some discomfort watching an actor pretending to be a homeless person when there are real rough sleepers nearby. And, as with most events of this kind, it throws up its share of situations where you don’t know where to look – such as a couple of women meeting for a 1980s school reunion who insist on performing their favourite Mel and Kim routine in a crowded waiting area. It’s quite funky, though Freedom Studios’ endeavour is best paraphrased in the deathless words of Stock, Aitken and Waterman: Take or leave us, only please believe us, we ain’t ever gonna be respectable.
- At Bradford Interchange station until 10 October. Freedom Studios: 01274 730 077.
