REVIEW: 74 Redland Grove - Sunnybank Theatre Group

74 Redland Grove

Book, Music, and Lyrics: Mark Westby

Directors: Chris O’Leary and Tammy Sarah Linde

Date Attended: 1 July 2026

Cast: Roselie Chase, Samuel Craig, Hannah Davies, Emma Hodis, Michael Lawrence, Jason Lawson, Amie O’Callaghan, Gillian Simpson, Josephine Stockdale, Josie Yarham, Nathaniel Young, and Emily Straus

“Some part of us thinks our parents will live on forever.”

Writing a full original musical is no small thing. Writing the book, music, and lyrics yourself, then handing that creation to a cast and putting it in front of an audience, takes massive guts. 74 Redland Grove, written by Mark Westby and directed by Chris O’Leary and Tammy Sarah Linde, is certainly an odd creation. It’s ambitious, imaginative, and at times so bizarre that I found myself wondering whether I was watching a family drama, nostalgic comedy, puppet show, or trauma musical.

Set in working-class Nottingham, 74 Redland Grove begins with the funeral of Marina Coningsby, mother of eight, before travelling back through the chaos of family life at number 74. Jason Lawson guides the story as the older Riffs (the unplanned youngest child), reflecting on his childhood from a seat downstage through memories, commentary, and fragments of poetry. We meet Marina, her often-absent husband Jonathan, and their many children, some played by actors and others represented by large puppets. Each child is named after the date they were born (Seven, for example), except for Riffs, whose name sets him apart.

The set places us inside a colourful, cluttered 1970s living room of hand-drawn graphics and cardboard-style props. Its texta-and-cardboard aesthetic turns the house into a child’s reconstruction of events, and the oddball puppets push that idea into increasingly warped territory. There’s the mohawked child, gossiping neighbour Drag Ash Lil with her rollers and cigarette, moustachioed Officer Flirt, and some genuinely nightmarish creations involving a bristle brush and washing machine. Having some of the eight children played by actors and others represented by puppets is another curious choice, though I’m never entirely sure of the point of that distinction.

The script deals with generational trauma, neglect, parental frustration, and sibling rivalry. Marina is a harsh, exhausted mother who hits her children, washes their mouths with soap, and responds to pain with, “I’ll give you something to cry about.” Beneath the surreal presentation are children craving attention in a house where nobody seems to have enough softness to spare.

Amie O’Callaghan brought strong vocals and emotional weight to Marina, finding some humanity beneath the character’s temper and cruelty. Her portrayal softened Marina as the story progressed, particularly after younger Riffs went missing and we saw more of an overwhelmed mother beneath her harsher behaviour. The entire ensemble committed wholeheartedly to this unusual theatrical world.

The music has promise, though several songs feel underdeveloped. There are catchy and amusing ideas, including the number about dinner needing to be on the table at 5:05 and the firemen’s song, “Size Does Matter.” At this performance, the singers were generally capable and the microphones mostly functional, though clarity was an ongoing issues. Enunciation needed more attention across the cast. I struggled to catch a considerable amount of the lyrics and dialogue, and I wasn’t the only one. With an original musical, where we’re encountering every line and lyric for the first time, losing words also means losing big chunks of the story.

Tonally, 74 Redland Grove is difficult to pin down. It moves between domestic drama, surreal puppet comedy, and bawdy adult humour, and those elements don’t sit comfortably together. The script contains some cheeky humour, though at my performance many of the jokes received little response, particularly the sexual ones. Act Two is where the show lost me most. Act One has a clearer structure, with its stranger elements grounded in Riffs’ memories of childhood and family life. In Act Two, that connection becomes harder to follow as the story grows longer, looser, and considerably more bizarre. The pool table puppet, the “spanky time” gimp mask puppets, and the more adult humour seem to belong to a different theatrical world, and I struggled to understand how they related to the family story around them. In the final scene, the grown-ups’ reflections continue too long after their point is made, and the final song stretches beyond its natural conclusion.

There were some practical issues affecting the flow at this performance too. Pauses around backing tracks needed smoother handling, some scenes needed firmer rehearsal, and transitions often stalled the momentum. At times, the cast also seemed caught between playing the material for laughs and treating it with pathos, leaving me unsure how some scenes should be received.

Despite my many reservations, I don’t want to dismiss the sheer amount of imagination behind this production and what they attempted. There’s a distinctly handmade aesthetic, community performers throwing themselves into a peculiar concept, and a script that produces some striking lines and images. For me, this isn’t my kind of show. The era, family dynamic, and puppet-heavy style don’t connect strongly with my personal tastes or experiences. Still, I can see the sincerity in its examination of how children remember trauma, how families process dysfunction, and how ordinary household objects become enormous, grotesque monsters in a child’s memory.

74 Redland Grove is ambitious and deeply odd, with ideas spilling out in almost every direction. Beneath the chaos, though, there’s imagination, local originality, and a handmade quality that gives this peculiar new musical an identity entirely its own.