Witness 'William Street' live

William Street is a political drama set around the events of Bloody Sunday in Derry in 1972. At its centre is a family trying to hold itself together in a time of escalating conflict and division. Sean, the father, is a high-ranking IRA member, and his influence begins to shape the path of his son, who follows in his footsteps. Meanwhile, the daughter is secretly in a relationship with a UVF member, creating a dangerous and hidden divide within the family itself. As political tensions outside intensify, those divisions begin to fracture the household from within. The play explores how large-scale political conflict filters into private lives, asking what happens when ideology, loyalty, and love exist in direct opposition to one another. Rather than focusing on history in the abstract, William Street brings it into the home, examining the emotional and human cost of division. At its core, the play is about family, identity, and the way inherited conflict shapes the choices people make  often without fully understanding the consequences.

William Street was initially developed as part of a university assessment at Oxford Brookes University. The early stages of the work were created through a process of improvisation and collaborative devising, allowing the performers and writers to explore character relationships, themes, and situations in a more organic and instinctive way. These improvisations formed the foundation of the script, shaping both the narrative structure and the emotional core of the piece. As the work developed, it moved from a devised university project into a fully realised play, with further writing and refinement led by the creative team. This process has remained central to the identity of the production, with collaboration and experimentation continuing to influence how William Street has evolved into its final form.