Five star review for Bradford poet Kirsty Taylor's debut play Cashy C's The Musical

Bradford poet Kirsty Taylor’s impressive debut play Cashy C’s: The Musical is performed in a non-traditional theatre space – a former frozen food store in the city centre – and is set in a recreated pawnbroker shop that provides a lifeline for those living hand-to-mouth and struggling to survive.

With charismatic rapper Ty Richards as narrator, DJ Jae Depz providing the bassline musical backdrop and an ensemble of five talented actors – Charles Humphries, Phoebe Smith, Michaela Short, Hassan Fazane Khan and Robert Took – playing multiple roles, the story of Cashy C’s, its staff and customers is played out. All are marked by their background and class – “People like us, yeah, we’re told not to dream” – and Taylor extends to them great empathy and respect.

Through her poetry and spoken word performance Taylor has long been a champion of her beloved home city, showcasing and giving voice to its unheard stories. Her poems are like mini-reports from the frontline of Broken Britain unflinchingly documenting the sometimes-brutal reality of working-class life and this production continues that commitment to the people and the communities she grew up amongst.

It is justifiably angry and raw but there is a lot of Taylor’s characteristic warmth and humour here too. There is no denying much of the narrative deals with bleak themes – drug addiction, extreme poverty, petty criminality, depression and suicide – but there is also a huge amount of humanity, resilience and dignity here too. And an awful lot of kindness – the everyday consideration and care that people in such dire straits show each other. As much as anything Cashy C’s is a call to action and it unapologetically castigates the shameful, heartless behaviour of successive Conservative governments – “rich men are greedy”, “they are the criminals, why are we in handcuffs?” – the years of austerity under Tory rule have caused irreparable damage to the most vulnerable in society.

Powerful, funny, heart-breaking and true – this is a play that should be seen by everyone, everywhere. (I would love to see a performance being staged in the House of Commons). While very much rooted in the city of its birth, it is a universal story for our times – these struggles are going on in towns and cities all over the country. Urgent, timely, hard-hitting – this is activist theatre at its very best.

Cashy C’s: The Musical, in Bradford until October 7 and in Keighley October 21-23.