Go And Play Up Your Own End

The Midland’s most successful playwright of this century, Malcolm Stent, brings his wonderful show ‘Go And Play Up Your Own End’ to Symphony Hall.

“It was a phrase heard a lot when we were little boys growing up in working-class areas on opposing sides of the city. A city whose craftsmen built the carriages of The Orient Express, whose factories made motorbikes that broke world speed records and crafted motor cars for the gentry. A city renowned for the manufacture of aircraft, guns, tanks as well as fine jewellery to adorn the world’s well-to-do.

In those days Birmingham and the West Midlands were known as the workshops of the world, anything of value that could be bashed out of a bit of metal was made here. Times may have changed, but thankfully the pragmatic Brummie and Black Country spirit and ingenuity remains.”

And that, in a nutshell, is the plot of the show. A group of neighbours fight against the odds to re-build their lives, relationships and the city of their birth in a Britain made bankrupt by two world wars. The story is told with humour and song by some of the region’s most loved actors and full supporting cast.