Dreamers at the Oldham Coliseum is a new play by Cathy Crabb and Lindsay Williams with two big ambitions: to celebrate the much-loved local nightclub after which it is named, and to showcase an all-female cast of professionals and amateurs. Its lead actor is Sally Carman, best known for playing Kelly-Marie Maguire in Channel 4’s Shameless. She has been part of the production since the writing and casting process.
Describe Dreamers, the club, for us…
Small, dingy and dodgy, but much loved – one of those local places that was a massive part of your youth. You’d wipe your feet on the way out, as we say in the play. You’d go there if you thought you were an outcast, but you’d still spend two hours beforehand doing your makeup.
The play follows four girls from their teenage years to the present day...
Lots of different things happen to these girls. One goes to prison, one sets up a business, another becomes a film star in France. Stranger things have happened – this Rotherham girl got on to telly! There’s an incident in their youth and the play explores how they remember that, and how it affected them. The cast is all-female; if there were men in the nightclub scenes, the play would be completely different. We can concentrate on how the women interact, and how they change.
The play uses original compositions and indie classics to punctuate the drama. Is it a musical, or something else?
It’s a play with music. Some of the classics are sung straight – like the Smiths’ Please, Please, Please, Let Me Get What I Want – while we change the lyrics to others, including Sit Down by James, which is about two girls having a big row. Imagine The Full Monty plus the feel of Once Upon a Time in Wigan [Mick Martin’s 2003 play about northern soul, produced by Paul Sadot],with the approach of Mamma Mia!, I tell people. That usually gets them smiling!
Dreamers also features an all-female community chorus, made up of Oldham women you auditioned. What do they bring to the play?
Its soul, really. They fill the club in the first half, and show you how tiny the place really was. Some of them are young girls studying drama, who have fire in their bellies to go to drama school, but that route’s so difficult now. Others are normal people who fancied a go. They’re all brilliant.
The play is already selling well, too. What is its pull?
Everyone has a Dreamers in their life, a place where you used to go when you were the age when you felt invincible. These are places that feel bigger than they were in so many ways. This play, to me, feels much bigger than Oldham. It’s something very special.
• Dreamers is at the Oldham Coliseum until 4 July
• This article was amended on 6 July 2015 to correct a misattribution of the author of Once Upon a Time in Wigan.
