Cornwall's car raceway gears up to become outdoor theatre venue
Watch Kathy Wardle's report here.
Cornwall's United Downs Raceway near Redruth is the star of a new outdoor theatre production.
Wildworks is staging its show 'The Kneebone Cadillac' right in the centre of the stock car racetrack until the 14th July.
The track sits in an old mining landscape, and the play's creator says it shows a side of Cornwall many miles from the usual picture-postcard cliché.
The comedy-drama has been written by Cornish playwright Carl Grose, who was inspired by childhood trips to the raceway with his dad.
Carl said: “I’ve always been obsessed with the area, that slightly stranger Cornwall, and have such vivid memories of the raceway because my dad used to take me out there. I loved that world – noisy and smelly, with all that grease and burning petrol.
“With The Kneebone Cadillac being staged there, it’s going full circle for me from when I was an excited little kid.”
Wildworks is creating an arena within the rim of the stock car and banger racing circuit for the first-ever Cornwall-based production of the play, a critical hit when first aired in radio form in 2011.
It features the hard-up Kneebone family siblings Slick, Dwight and Maddy, who fall-out when their scrapyard-owning dad Jed shocks everyone by leaving his cherished 1958 Cadillac Eldorado to his only daughter.
Rather than cash in the prized but broken-down auto, feisty Maddy is determined to get it back on the road and take on all-comers in the United Downs Boneshaker stock car race.
Director Kyla Goodey has been working with Cornwall's devoted banger racing community to make sure the show captures the spirit of the race track.She told ITV News: ''We've recorded speeches and chats, and the way they speak and the sounds of the raceway. It is absolutely thrilling, the exhilaration you feel when those cars start revving up and then crashing into things. All of those stories and dialogue between people up here has fed the script.''Carl and Kyla Goodey first worked together as apprentices 30 years ago with Kneehigh Theatre company.
Carl said: “It’s great that The Kneebone Cadillac will be seen in Cornwall for the first time thanks to Wildworks and it’s wonderful that Kyla is directing. She so understands it and gets it that this is a story for Cornwall now.”
Kyla said: “Comedy is my first love and what Carl has written is bang up to date. It’s about a young woman’s ambition to succeed in a man’s world and to find a way to see it through to the end.
“It’s a fast and furious Cornish show with brilliant dialogue and tons of dramatic twists and turns. It does feel like life right now could do with some light relief and there is plenty of light relief in The Kneebone Cadillac.”
The Kneebone Cadillac is part of Wildworks-led We Are Shining, a major theatre engagement programme for Cornwall.
The production runs for 13 shows until July 14th 2024. It has an age rating of 12+ due to some strong language and adult themes.