Taking a trip back to a time of peace and free love

Jul 11 2008 by Vicky Anderson, Liverpool Daily Post

Eight Miles High was first performed at the Octagon Theatre in Bolton in 1991 and 2005, and also at Theatre Royal in Bristol in 1994 and 1995, when it was nominated for the TMA best musical award.

In 1997, a production of the play at the Reykjavik City Theatre, Iceland, ran for a year, breaking box office records.

Cartwright’s work, with its easily-identifiable characters and tales filled with poignant kitchen-sink dramas and heartwarming comic turns, lends itself well to travel and even translation into other languages – 25 to be exact.

He often recommends that performances of his Road, the play that made his name, are done in the accents of the city where it is being staged. In fact, this version of Eight Miles High sets the spirit of Woodstock in a field outside Liverpool.

“My work can be flexible,” he says. “There must be some universal element, which means it can be performed anywhere.

“I’m quite up for my plays being set in the places where they are performed – I think it’s nice.”

Commercially, Cartwright is best known for his play, The Rise and Fall of Little Voice, which was adapted into the film Little Voice, with Jane Horrocks in the lead role, a part she had also played on stage.

The film came at the beginning of a trend of bitter-sweet, tragi-comic British cinema to which the likes of Billy Elliott, Brassed Off and The Full Monty followed, all to international acclaim.

“The best bits were true to the play, of course, and it was a successful film in terms of box office, and maybe it did set off some sort of genre, which is quite fantastic in a way.

“I want my work to be life-affirming, if possible, and hopefully that’s what comes out of it and I hope people come out feeling good.”

Bolton born and bred – he met his wife signing on at the dole office where she worked in the 1980s – he says that staying up north has grounded him.

He never expected to forge a career as a writer, and co-incidentally tying in with Eight Miles High is the release of his first novel, Supermarket Supermodel.

Its tagline, “from minimum wage to centre stage”, hints it already ticks the classic Cartwright boxes.

“I’m a writer by accident,” he laughs.

“I was just a working-class lad, I went to quite a rough secondary school and writing was something that kind of interested me but I always thought it was something clever people did.

“Later in life, I started showing my stuff to people and ended up at the Royal Court in London, the play was a success, and people gave me money to do other things.”

* EIGHT Miles High is at the Royal Court, Liverpool, from July 18 until August 16.

vickyanderson@dailypost.co.uk