Writer: Rhianna Ilube
Creative Directors: Dani Parr and Stephanie Bain
Theatre community programmes produce some of the most interesting and engaging work that explores the context of the venue and the people in its neighbourhood. Of all the major initiatives, it is the Almeida Theatre in Islington that incorporates this best alongside its regular programming, creating responses to its main house shows developed by its Young Company several times a year. It now presents 81 (Life), the second of a trilogy of works performed by Islington residents in collaboration with All Change, Islington Community Group and Carboard Citizens, its purpose, to reflect a lifetime of new beginnings, connections and how to let go.
Written by Rhianne Ilube, the show takes place across two hours and 35 minutes with three big set piece scenes; the first a group of community activists meeting in a park to establish an intervention group to help the people of the borough find new connections, promising to reconvene exactly a year later (at the end of the show) to reflect on their success. Dropping in to help in the aftermath of a friendship breakup and creating a decision-making game show, the group manage to change a lot of lives.
It is really positive to see such a substantial community project, co-devised and developed over several years with the residents of Islington and, crucially, focusing entirely on their area with locations including Highbury Fields, the vitally important 38 bus stop – apparently the only service to have survived two World Wars – and the Almeida Theatre itself as well as the homes of the characters they create. And with 60 participants, many of whom appear on stage, the sense of collaboration and Illube’s strong community-building message is both heartwarming and inspiring.
But it is also meaningful theatre. A scenario involving a TV-lover who feels alone following her best friend’s decision to take a break evolves into a fantasy sequence as the woman is shown all the people she could meet by taking up any number of hobbies that they demonstrate for her, by accepting that she might make new friends unexpectedly or by joining an over-60s rock band auditioning for a guitarist. It is an extended sequence but a well-managed showcase for the different kinds of lives being lived nearby.
After the interval, an entertaining television game show gives three contestants the chance to solve a major life dilemma by being shown the future outcomes based on their options and receiving ‘pearls of wisdom’ from different sources. The problems range from the amusingly mundane, such as whether to try a different lunch choice, to whether to leave a sick relative to experience a bigger life, but the thoroughness of the concept and the characterisation of the on-screen and off-camera staff creates lots of stories and worlds within worlds that flesh out the scenario.
It ends with a ritual on the imagined Highbury Fields in which the audience, too, can choose to let go of something that is holding them back and receive an affirmation as they leave. A little sentimental perhaps, but 81 (Life) creates a moment of community and togetherness in the room, which is exactly what it set out to do. Whether you take that onto the streets of Islington is up to you.
Reviewed on 23 August 2025
