Late Bradford playwright returns to public attention in Clio Barnard's The Arbor
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Bradford, West Yorkshire. Two tragic lives. One that ended far too early at the age of 29, immortalised in work for stage and screen; the other, lacking the same sort of prowess for artistic endeavour, wishing she had suffered a similar fate. The two people in question: Bradford playwright Andrea Dunbar and her eldest daughter Lorraine.
Debut filmmaker Clio Barnard brings their story of social alienation and familial dysfunction to the screen in a unique drama-documentary that mixes audio recordings with real life participants lip-synched by actors, theatrical performance, and archive footage. The film, which charts Andrea Dunbar’s short life through her children and closest relative’s recollections, also looks at the similarly difficult plight of her daughter. Lorraine, the eldest of Andrea’s three children and the product of Andrea’s relationship to a Pakistani man, suffered from ignorant insults as well as the often distant mothering instincts of her alcoholic mother.
If it all sounds like a bleak tale about a bleak Bradford neighbourhood, in many respects, it’s because it is. But it’s also a measured and expertly constructed celebration of a talented young woman. As a playwright, Andrea Dunbar was given an outlet for her very real heartache, her anger and her anguish. Her plays, as well as her feature film Rita, Sue and Bob Too, spoke about class division in late 1970s and 1980s Britain, the changing social plain, ethnic diversity, the breakdown of the family unit. It was current, it cut to the bone. That Lorraine was born in the middle of this cultural and personal crotch kick speaks volumes of her mother’s inner conflict as well reasoning, somewhat, her own downward spiral into drug addiction and prostitution.
Debut filmmaker Clio Barnard brings their story of social alienation and familial dysfunction to the screen in a unique drama-documentary that mixes audio recordings with real life participants lip-synched by actors, theatrical performance, and archive footage. The film, which charts Andrea Dunbar’s short life through her children and closest relative’s recollections, also looks at the similarly difficult plight of her daughter. Lorraine, the eldest of Andrea’s three children and the product of Andrea’s relationship to a Pakistani man, suffered from ignorant insults as well as the often distant mothering instincts of her alcoholic mother.
If it all sounds like a bleak tale about a bleak Bradford neighbourhood, in many respects, it’s because it is. But it’s also a measured and expertly constructed celebration of a talented young woman. As a playwright, Andrea Dunbar was given an outlet for her very real heartache, her anger and her anguish. Her plays, as well as her feature film Rita, Sue and Bob Too, spoke about class division in late 1970s and 1980s Britain, the changing social plain, ethnic diversity, the breakdown of the family unit. It was current, it cut to the bone. That Lorraine was born in the middle of this cultural and personal crotch kick speaks volumes of her mother’s inner conflict as well reasoning, somewhat, her own downward spiral into drug addiction and prostitution.
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