Home St Catherine's Tower, London E10
Getting on the minibus at Walthamstow Central Station with eight other people is unnerving. It feels more like we're about to break a strike than go to the theatre; but Offstage Theatre's new production, Home, is an extraordinary project. Set in the soon-to-be-demolished St Catherine's Tower in Leyton's Beaumont Estate, it is based on the experiences of the former inhabitants, seeking to discover how its architecture affected the families that lived there while highlighting the area's social and economic problems. Using monologues, projections, rap and traditional theatre, it focuses on an exhausted mother trying to create a functional family in a dysfunctional environment. Starting in the block's rubbish tip, the audience is ushered through the flat, hearing tales of teenage angst and gang wars. You can smell the desperation in the damp, rotting air, while the posters by local children remind you of a lost innocence. The star of the show is the tower itself, a dark and crumbling presence. Home is less a love letter to the Sixties' flirtation with building upwards than a poignant obituary.
