Steel
By Lee Mattinson, Directed by Liz Stevenson
On the wet West Cumbrian coast, James and Kamran have been mates for more than a decade. At seventeen, the world should be theirs but Workington’s a ghost town – an unemployment blackspot where lasses drink Bacardi by the pint and boys don’t cry.
When James discovers he is heir to a single mile of the British railway system, the lads are forced on a town-wide treasure hunt where annihilated aunties, Snakebite-drenched drag queens and a zombie Princess Diana lay in wait. But who rightfully owns the mile of steel? Why is Kamran in such a strop? And what really happens in the pub down by the docks?
In a town once rich with coal seams and ore, with community and carnivals, with sea air and ale, James and Kamran are fed up with feeling different – tonight they’re painting the town technicolour and asking what it means to be a man in a play about first loves, forging identities and the wild, wild hearts of teenage boys.
Theatre by the Lake in association with Park Theatre.
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Evenings
19:00
Thu & Sat15:15
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Duration
1 hour 25 minutes, with no interval
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Tickets
£22
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Genre
Drama
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Age guidance
14+
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Content warnings
This productions contains strong language.
Content Warnings
This productions contains strong language.
Also contains haze, experiences of grief, descriptions of violence, sex, homophobia and racism.
Photos & Videos

In the press
"Beautiful and breath-stopping"
The Stage
"Surprisingly emotional and very powerful"
What’s Good to Do
"This month’s hottest ticket"
Cumberland and Westmorland Times
"Keeps you on the edge of your seat"
Cumbria 24
"Raw emotion is exposed with heartache and humour"
Mag North
Cast and creatives
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Suraj Shah
Kamran
Suraj Shah
Kamran
Suraj is an actor from Leicester who trained at Mountview Academy of Theatre Arts. Stage credits include: Mumbai Nights 2 (The Louvre, Abu Dhabi), and the world premiere of Steel (Theatre by the Lake), he has also worked on projects with The National Theatre, The Curve Theatre, and Mousetrap Theatre Projects. Voiceover credits include: British Airways India Commercial.
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Jordan Tweddle
James
Jordan Tweddle
James
Jordan is an award-winning actor from Wigton, Cumbria. Tweddle trained at the Manchester School of Theatre, and since graduating he has worked consistently in television, film and theatre. He is most notably known for his role of Zac Mayers in ITV’s Coronation Street. In 2019, Tweddle was awarded Best Actor at both the Top Indie Film Awards and Monkey Bread Tree Film Awards for his role of Jack in Peccadillo Pictures’ Don’t Blame Jack for Boys on Film 20: Heaven Can Wait. Tweddle was recently awarded the ADHD Comedy Award at Edinburgh Fringe for his role of Pillock, in his one-man show of the same name. His credits include: Pillock (Shakespeare North/Contact Theatre/Edinburgh Fringe); BBC’s First Homosexual (BBC and Inkbrew Productions); Coronation Street (ITV); The Looks Department (Reallife Theatre Company and 53Two); Wings (Theatre by the Lake); Lemons Lemons Lemons Lemons (Theatre by the Lake); White Bean Tapas and Manchego (Qweerdog Theatre); Don’t Blame Jack and Boys on Film: 20 (Peccadillo Pictures); LovePit Potion (BFI); No Traveller Returns (Iron Pier Films); Frozen (UK Tour); NAMELY HOMELY COMELY TIMELY (Whitworth Gallery); Canopy of Stars (Tristan Bates Theatre); and Man of Mode (HOME).
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Lee Mattinson
Writer
Lee Mattinson
Writer
Lee is an award-winning playwright originally from West Cumbria. Theatre credits include: Crocodiles (Royal Exchange); Snap (Young Vic); Gary Lineker is Gay (Paines Plough); Chalet Lines (Bush Theatre); No Wire Hangers (Soho Theatre); The Kids Are Alright, I Heart Catherine Pistachio, The Streets in the Sky and Choir (Encounter); Me and Cilla and Jonathan Likes This (Live Theatre) and The Season Ticket (Pilot Theatre/Northern Stage). Film credits include: Fist (Elevator/BFI Network) and Show Pony (Knock & Nash). TV credits include: Coronation Street (Story Associate, ITV) and Scallywagga (BBC 3). Radio credits include: Me and Cilla, Tongue, Glow in the Dark and 2 Clowns, 1 Trumpet (BBC Radio 3); Magpie (BBC Radio 4); Prom and Snowglobe (BBC Radio Newcastle).
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Liz Stevenson
Director
Liz Stevenson
Director
Liz is Artistic Director and joint CEO of Theatre by the Lake. Liz was formerly the co-founder and Artistic Director of Junction 8 Theatre, producing new plays made with, for and about the community in her hometown of Chorley, Lancashire. She is a recipient of the JMK Award and directed Barbarians at the Young Vic, which was nominated for an Olivier Award. Other directing credits include: Brassed Off (Theatre by the Lake/Stephen Joseph Theatre/Octagon Theatre Bolton); A Little Princess, Every Brilliant Thing, The Beauty Queen of Leenane, Tom’s Midnight Garden, Handbagged (TBTL); Home I’m Darling (TBTL/ Stephen Joseph Theatre/Octagon Theatre Bolton); A Christmas Carol (Theatr Clwyd); Lancastrians, Under the Market Roof (Junction 8 Theatre); The Secret Garden (York Theatre Royal/Theatre by the Lake); How My Light is Spent (Royal Exchange Theatre/Sherman Theatre/TBTL) and Macbeth (Dukes Theatre, Lancaster).
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Simon Kenny
Designer
Simon Kenny
Designer
Theatre includes: Brassed Off (Theatre by the Lake/Stephen Joseph Theatre/Octagon Theatre Bolton); The Real & Imagined History of The Elephant Man (Nottingham Playhouse); Murder in the Dark (Original Theatre); Family Tree (Actors Touring Company); Duet For One (Orange Tree); Blue/Orange (Royal & Derngate Northampton); Nothello (Belgrade/ Coventry City of Culture); The Art of Illusion, The Death of a Black Man (Hampstead); Footfalls & Rockaby (Jermyn Street); several UK tours for Eclipse including The Gift (Stratford East) and Black Men Walking (Royal Exchange); Crongton Knights, Noughts & Crosses (Pilot/UK tours); Red Dust Road (National Theatre of Scotland); Giraffes Can’t Dance (Curve); The Children (English Theatre Frankfurt); Holes (Nottingham Playhouse/ UK tour); Rose (HOME); Twelfth Night, The Merchant of Venice (Shakespeare’s Globe); Sleeping Beauty, The Ladykillers (Watermill); Ghosts (Theatr Clwyd); Island (National Theatre); and BORDER FORCE, an immersive installation/performance/club event for Duckie. Musical theatre includes The Lord Of The Rings: A Musical Tale (Watermill/Chicago Shakespeare Theater); Whistle Down The Wind (Watermill); The Lion (Southwark Playhouse/Arizona Theatre Company); The Light in the Piazza (Royal Academy of Music); The Wiz (Hope Mill); Ghost Quartet (Boulevard Theatre); Assassins (Nottingham Playhouse); the multi award-winning Sweeney Todd in a purpose-built pie shop (West End/Off-Broadway); The Selfish Giant (West End); Cabaret (English Theatre Frankfurt); The World Goes Round (Stephen Joseph Theatre); and Saturday Night Fever (UK tour).
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Mark Melville
Composer and Sound Designer
Mark Melville
Composer and Sound Designer
Mark is a composer and sound designer for theatre and film and trained at Leeds Conservatoire. His music and sound design work has been presented across the UK and internationally. Recent projects include: The Fifth Step (National Theatre of Scotland/West End); Confessions of a Shinagawa Monkey (Vanishing Point/Kanagawa Arts Theatre, Japan); Darwin, Nevada (Piccolo Teatro, Milan); Kin (Gecko/National Theatre); The Greatest Play in the History of the World (Tara Finney Productions/Trafalgar Theatre); Flight (Vox Motus/Edinburgh International Festival/Barbican); Romeo and Juliet, Frankenstein, Wit, Birth (Royal Exchange); Love the Sinner, The Metamorphosis (Vanishing Point); Human Animals, Violence, Son, God Bless the Child (Royal Court); Exodus,The Panopticon, Yer Granny, Knives in Hens, Miracle Man, Empty, My Shrinking Life, Dragon (National Theatre of Scotland); Saturday Night (Vanishing Point/National Theatre of Portugal); Wonderland (Vanishing Point/Edinburgh International Festival/ Napoli Teatro Festival Italia); Midsummer, They Can’t Pay? We Won’t Pay! (Mercury Theatre); Steel, Every Brilliant Thing, Guards at the Taj (Theatre by the Lake); Where Do We Belong, Where Do We Stand? (Northern Stage); Little Gift (M6 Theatre / Andy Manley); Road (Leeds Playhouse); 1984 (Emilia Romagna Teatro, Bologna); Charlie Sonata (Lyceum, Edinburgh); The Destroyed Room (Vanishing Point / Battersea Arts Centre) and Mister Holgado (Unicorn).
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Jessie Addinall
Lighting Designer
Jessie Addinall
Lighting Designer
Jessie is a Hull-based lighting designer. They were an ALPD Lumiere (2020). Some of their credits include: Hospital Doors (Next Door But One); Bitch Boxer (Watford Palace Theatre); Good For A Girl (Fractured Glass); The Borrowers (Hull Truck Theatre); Steel (Theatre by The Lake); The Crucible (Leeds Conservatoire); GUTS! The Musical (Hull Truck Theatre); Baby He Loves You (Middle Child); La Scala di Seta (RNCM); Snowmen (The Herd); Pinocchio (Hull Truck); These Majestic Creatures (Stephen Joseph Theatre); Romeo and Juliet & As You Like It (Leeds Conservatoire); We Could All Be Perfect (Sheffield Theatres); MODEST (Middle Child & Milk Presents); Brief Encounter (The New Wolsey & Salisbury Playhouse), Children of the Night (CAST); Ladies Day (The New Vic & The Octagon Theatre); Jack, Mum and The Beanstalk (Hull Truck Theatre); Macbeth & Twelfth Night (Leeds Conservatoire); Ladies Unleashed (Hull Truck Theatre); The Whispering Jungle (Concrete Youth); A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Hull Truck Theatre); Teechers Leavers 22’ (Hull Truck Theatre); The Hound of The Baskervilles (ERT Theatre); we used to be closer than this (Middle Child); Ducklings (The Herd); Beauty Queen of Leenane (Hull Truck Theatre & Queens Theatre); The Canary and The Crow (Middle Child); Beach Body Ready (The Roaring Girls); Paragon Dreams (Hull Truck) and Us Against Whatever (Middle Child) Associate Credits Include: Animal Farm (The Octagon); Sanctuary (Red Ladder); Dogs (Liverpool Playhouse); 71 Coltman Street (Hull Truck Theatre); Megalith (Mechanimal) and Shedding a Skin (SOHO Theatre).
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Kieran Sheehan
Movement Director
Kieran Sheehan
Movement Director
Kieran has worked as a movement artist over the last 20 years, collaborating on many different kinds of projects and productions; he is currently Associate Director of theatre company Silent Uproar. Kieran develops research projects using movement and often writes about and performs on this subject. Kieran is very proud to be the Director of ‘Everyone Here’, whose creative programme is led and shaped by a citizens’ panel, Jury for Joy, based in West Cumbria.
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Mark Macey
Associate Director
Mark Macey
Associate Director
Mark (they/them) is an American writer and director living and working in the UK. A graduate of Dell’Arte International’s Professional Training Program, Mark is currently pursuing an MFA in Theatre Directing from the University of London, Birkbeck.
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Colin Brind
Community Choir Music Director
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Emily Ford
Scenic Floor Illustrator
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Jamie Walsh
Producer
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Philip Geller
Production Manager
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Katie Hutchings
Production Coordinator
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Sarah Goodyear
Company Stage Manager
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Lawrence Carter
Touring Technician
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Gemma Reeve
Costume Supervisor
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Displaying 6 performances for Steel
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Wed 11 Jun 2025
7pm
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Thu 12 Jun 2025
3.15pm
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7pm
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7pm
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Sat 14 Jun 2025
3.15pm
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7pm
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