ASPIRING amateur actors had the rare opportunity to perform at Upper Street’s Almeida Theatre, in the second instalment of its trio of plays featuring local residents.

More than 80 people from three Islington community groups participated in 81 (LIFE), a show described as “part poem, part game-show and part play” which is set in Highbury Fields on a day in August 2025.

It centred on 60 strangers gathered in the park at sunset, all on the brink of taking the next big step in whatever they’re grappling with in their lives, and focused on capturing the vast identities and experiences of people living in Islington.

81 (LIFE) is part of the Islington Trilogy: three plays over three years, bringing together local people in an exploration of what it means to “live, work, love, pray, celebrate and mourn” in the borough.

This year’s show was a collaboration between the Almeida, All Change – a local arts initiative – and Cardboard Citizens, a theatre company that creates work with and for people who have experienced homelessness.