Kosovo Bound by Dave McCadden at The Gregson, reviewed by Chris Webber "I WAS really choked at times watching this, really choked" said Mal Hussain's business partner Linda Livingstone.

She had just witnessed a play - which could be very funny - about life as a shopkeeper on a working class estate. The shopkeeper talks to us, the audience, while racist attacks are going on outside against a next door Pakistani grocer's shop.

Linda explained: "It was just too close to home and with people from the police authority and council people there it just got to me."

Mal himself was more pragmatic. He laughed: "The language just wasn't strong enough - it's a million times worse than that in real life! But of course it made very serious points about what's going on. I just hope it gets the message across to certain people who need to know what's going on."

There were certainly enough specific references to Lancaster and to Mal and Linda's plight - despite writer Dave McCadden's protestations that this was a play set in 'Anytown.' There were mentions about the Blobby fiasco, "If the council walked away from a fight with Mr Blobby they've no chance here!". Dee Road - one of the streets on Ryelands, a 'caged protest by brothers against the council's knocking down their home,' - surely a reference to the Tagues, the 'Friends' of the race hate shop keeper victim next door and, of course, The Citizen.

But the play was at its best when our hero, Charlie, talks about his days as a skinhead. Writer and Director McCadden uses reggae and ska tunes to evoke the period of when Charlie was young. He talks about how he innocently falls in with a bunch of racist skinheads - ironically through his enthusiasm for black music. He ends up marching through the streets going 'paki bashing' (although they never find any) until, one day, something changes his attitude forever. It's during these monologues that Charlie's own doomed love story is told. Simon Mott, who learnt his lines as Charlie on a Greek beech last week, performed well. Without his first rate performance the play simply would not have worked.

But was it really true to life? Owner of Convenience Express Stores on Aldrens Lane in Skerton passed his own verdict. "It was spot on," he said.

Kosovo Bound will be performed at The Gregson centre on September 21 and 22. Call 859599 to buy tickets.

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