What does being a Londoner mean to you? Early morning rushes after social drinks the night before, Lime bikes, cramped Tubes, expensive coffee from elaborate shops, spending ages in the corner shop aisle trying to find the best milk alternative that’s healthy but affordable, counting the endless hours till you can leave your dead-end job before going home to grind more for your dream as a creative or anything else? Essentially trying to survive in this doom-and-gloom modern world and keep your dream alight?
Maëlle Leggiadro is one of these Londoners with a dream, who worked hard to bring her storytelling dreams to life with Storeys Apart, credited as creator, writer, director and cast member, alongside Ore Olubajo, James Eykyn, Victoria Benard, Laila Kiki Kondo, Yolanda Hadjidemetriou and Charlie Crookston.
The anthology series follows the interconnected lives of Nora, Samson, Alex, Delilah, Toby, Theodore and Anne, seven Londoners who dip in and out of each other’s lives in a never-ending butterfly effect.“In a city of millions, our lives are closer than we think. 7 Londoners. 7 lives. Seemingly separate, deeply intertwined.”
Leggiadro’s work “captures a generation navigating ambition, immigration, love, and survival in a city that asks everything and promises nothing.”“Created independently from the ground up and starring an incredible cast of Identity School of Acting alumni, this is a series made by young people, about young people, for anyone who has ever felt lost, betrayed, in love, or completely out of place.”
The series oversaw a first look premiere at Art House Crouch End, a place dedicated to curating artistic expression in film and bringing a film-loving community together, followed by a Q&A session with the cast.
Storeys Apart is both a love letter to the hard-working aspiring artists living and working in London, as well as an acknowledging embrace affirming “I see you and want you to achieve your goals.”
The show spotlights the intricate inner workings of chasing your dreams while trying to stay afloat in the capital city, peddling through rising costs, cramped living conditions, generational pressures and the getting shit done attitude its people maintain despite endless obstacles. We don’t know how we’re making things work, but we just are.
As Leggiadro stated in the after-talk, Storeys Apart’s writing came from the famous mantra: “Always be kind, you never know what someone is going through.” The show works to illustrate how every one you walk past in London, the endless seas of faces everyday, the people you sit across on the bus, the baristas who hand you your coffee so you can survive your job on minimal sleep even though they need to same thing, the people who take a little time in front of you in the queues, is experiencing a trouble or test outside of your own brief run in with them.
Leggiadro wrote the piece from a place of recognising that “fiction is just a distorted mirror of reality” and so “asked [each cast member] to tell [her] something about them that was personal, their dreams, their passions…” to write an array of characters who feel real and compassionate in their design. Storeys Apart achieves this effortlessly and with some compelling direction, with the camera work blending the personal and geographical in one to highlight the compelling relationship between Londoners and their city.
One shining highlight to Leggiadro’s direction is that its setting of London is just as much of a character as the people. It is captured and celebrated in clear, picturesque backgrounds, establishing shots and montages of the iconic imagery which threads together to symbolise our home: the tubes we ride to work or social events, the corner shops where Bossman greets us everyday with warmth without fail, the flats we move out of our mum’s into to climb one step further into adulthood, the packed roads bursting with so much sound we come to sleep soundly to it. Storeys Apart inspects this city and thoroughly encapsulates how, for those living here, there is just so much opportunity at our front doors, ready to grab and bask in with hard work, commitment and faith in one’s self.
We then meet Anne’s cousin Theodore properly, embodied by persistent hints that that character harbours wealth and power but seems unsatisfied with it. Theodore’s story, consisting of being treated like an object by fans in the street and finding a break in admiring Alex, an artist, represents the conflict of wanting the little things in life as a source of joy when you are caged in by excessive material faux trophies.
He embodies a large deal of the middle to upper class of central London, expensive designer suits and affluent vocabulary and opportunities, yet the inclusion of Alex into his world bridges in something of deeper value. Theodore admires Alex for not knowing who he is or pretending to care, instead focusing on her craft where she looks to the same streets he is objectified and bored within as a source of inspiration.
Storeys Apart is an entertaining, charming and heartwarming inspection into the highs and lows of living in today’s London.
