BEFORE Andrea Dunbar based her play Rita, Sue and Bob Too on Bradford’s Buttershaw Estate, most of middle England had never heard of the place.
She adapted her theatre piece into a film, starring former Everyman Theatre actor George Costigan and audiences were by turns shocked and moved by the bittersweet story of two schoolgirls having an affair with a married man.
Twenty-three years later, her nephew Richard Dunbar has written another play set on the estate – The Arborites, which is being shown as part of Liverpool Hope University’s Cornerstone Festival this month.
It is a piece of verbatim theatre, using the words of people living on Buttershaw, where Dunbar has lived for the whole of his life except while studying at Hope.
“Rita, Sue and Bob Too raised pertinent points about families growing up in poverty, family breakdown, teenage pregnancy and alcoholism,” says the 26-year-old.
“Andrea perfectly captured Thatcherism in the play and how her regime forgot those in poverty.
“I would not say that my auntie writing the play affected my reaction to it. What it did do though is make me think about the issues there were on Buttershaw and what should be done to tackle them in order to make life better for the residents.”
His response is The Arborites (based on the name of an earlier version Andrea Dunbar’s script, The Arbor).
“If you spent a day in Buttershaw you would realise that it is full of characters who always have stories to tell,” says Dunbar.
“Most of the play is taken from the actual words of real people with several breakout scenes based around them.
“Its strength and power comes through the truth of the words spoken of those people I interviewed.”
Practitioners of verbatim theatre are often outsiders, placing themselves within a community to capture their words and opinions.
Dunbar’s experience was very different – his play uses the words of his friends and neighbours.
“What I knew before embarking on this project was that people on Buttershaw will tell you how it is and not beat around the bush,” he says.
“I have nothing but complete respect for them and how helpful and supportive they have been with me.
“I think my idea has been very well received on the estate and the reason for that is simple – I have lived there all my life so the people I have talked to know I have no hidden agenda and that I have gone through the same things as them.”
Many of the issues Andrea Dunbar (who died in 1990) highlighted in Rita, Sue and Bob Too are far from being resolved more than two decades later.
Dunbar hopes The Arborites will open people’s minds to the problems faced by people living in poverty in the UK and provoke discussion.
But the picture isn’t entirely bleak.
Dunbar adds: “Despite the disappointment, despair and harsh realities of growing up in poverty there always has been and always will be an obvious community pride and sense of togetherness in Buttershaw.”
THE Arborites by Richard Dunbar is at the Cornerstone, Hope University, on Monday November 23. Tickets are free but book ahead on 0151 291 3578.
