Thatcher heroin epidemic play gets first Oldham outing during Recoverist Month

An award-winning play which chronicles the Thatcher-era heroin epidemic is coming to Oldham for the first time this Recoverist Month.

A rehearsed reading of The Political History of Smack and Crack, which has been compared to Trainspotting, will take place at Oldham Library on Wednesday, September 18, 2024.

Written by Manchester-based Ed Edwards and rated 'Exceptional' by The Stage, the story is based on the writer's own experiences in jail and rehab.

It follows the lives of lovers Mandy and Neil, whose paths first cross as children on the night of the Moss Side riots of 1981. 

They share some laughs, an occasional bed and finally their love as they seek to maintain a fragile recovery against the drug epidemic that smashes the inner-city communities at the height of Thatcherism. 

Winner of Summerhall’s Lustrum Award and a Theatre503 playwriting award finalist, The Political History of Smack and Crack is a very personal love song to a lost generation, shot through with home truths about the road to recovery.  

It will be performed as a rehearsed reading by Eve Steele (Coronation Street's Anne Malone) and William Fox, two actors with close connections to the roles, both having toured nationally in the show since 2020.

The performance will be followed by a Q&A with the writer and actors.

Recoverist Month uses the arts to celebrate people in recovery from substance use in Greater Manchester.

It was established in 2023 by recovery arts organisation Portraits of Recovery (PORe), which was founded in Chadderton by Mark Prest in 2011.

Mark, who will introduce the Q&A,  said: "Addiction is an emotional illness, a response for some, simply to the trauma of living life and like the frame of this powerfully important play, a love affair, but with substance itself.

"If we choose, we can extricate ourselves out of these dysfunctional relationships and be free by better knowing who we are.

"Ed Edwards' poignant play helps contextualise the environment in which these things can manifest themselves and through a range of emotions signposts us towards the hope of a better life."

Ed said: “Most plays I’ve seen about heroin show the horrors and the degradation of the experience from the personal perspective as if hard drugs have just fallen from the sky. 

"I wanted to show two things differently. Firstly, that the smack - and in its wake crack - didn’t appear from nowhere: they appeared at a particular time for a particular reason and that reason is political. 

"Secondly, I wanted to deal with addicts in recovery - mainly because most of the addicts I know are in recovery - and I wanted to show the madness that goes along with stopping using drugs.

"I wanted to make people laugh and make people cry."

The Political History of Smack and Crack (rehearsed reading) is at Oldham Library performance space, Greaves Street OL1 1AL on Wednesday, September 18, 2024 from 6-7.30pm.

Tickets are pay what you can from £1.50-£10, and are available by clicking this link

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