Adventures in the Lake District: Local at Finborough Theatre


I found myself at my local theatre, The Finborough Theatre in Earls Court, watching a play called Local. This is a play about childhood memories, home in the North, and belonging. But when you live between towns, cities or countries even, perhaps you never feel at home in any of them. Welcome to the life of an outsider, not a local. And this is at the heart of Liz Richardson’s solo show about growing up in West Cumbria and how returning home, meeting again people from her past. We go with her on a journey to discover who she is and where she is going. It’s currently playing at the Finborough after touring Cumbria and other parts of England.

Richardson takes us on an engrossing and personal journey as she opens the show. Who she is and where she was from was how she always introduced herself. Except that she never said that she was from West Cumbria, but from the much nicer sounding Lake District. Ooooooooooh. Well she admits she was always a storyteller, and a life as a writer in the theatre was no doubt inevitable for her. Still, there was a touch of exaggeration from someone who wanted to be from somewhere else. Somewhere glamorous, aspirational or posh. Yet as she prepares to return home, her parents inform her that they are selling the family home, and she embarks on a journey to find out from her old friends and family what it means to be local. And maybe for her old schoolmates to take her down a peg or two.


Childhood memories and embarrassing situations from the past merge with current mundane tasks of clearing out stuff or going to a funeral of an old friend as Richardson seeks to answer the question about where she belongs and whether any of this matters. 

Anyone who has had to sell a family home and clear out its contents knows what it’s like finding a whole bunch of stuff that you had long forgotten, making you fall down a rabbit hole of memories - both amusing and embarrassing. And that’s a bit like what happens here. I didn’t grow up in West Cumbria or Earls Court in London, but it had me wondering where I would say I was from. Richardson’s ability to convey a story with warmth and self-deprecating humour, along with an evocative series of projections that make you feel like you’re on a journey, even if you are not always sure where it’s heading. 

Directed by Amy Hailwood, and written and performed by Liz Richardson, Local continues at the Finborough Theatre until 1 August. 

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Production photos: Stuart Allen

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