Clodagh Chapman reviews the Gloucester Road play, part of a student-led project bringing publicity and revenue to Bristol’s independent businesses and artists.

Theatre, especially student theatre, with any kind of social mission has long come under fire for supposedly being high and mighty, patronising and unnecessarily angsty. ‘Gloucester Road’, a play that is part of a wider project with the same name, completely blows this stereotype out of the water. The play aims to engage the Bristol population with the university’s thriving theatre scene and vice versa, and does a pretty exceptional job of it.

Against a backdrop of class divide and drug culture, ‘Gloucester Road’ tells the story of Fliss Nugent, a seamstress and shop owner. A piece of original writing by director Ben Bridson, the script seamlessly blends eras whilst managing to balance the, at times, heavy subject matter with genuine laugh-out-loud comedy. Bridson admirably weaves in incredibly well-written romance…