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 come to Samson, the seemingly bad boyfriend of Nora, but Leggiadro’s writing here shows we never truly know someone based on how many first glances. Following a brief conflict with Delilah, another one of Nora’s friends we previously saw who objects to the relationship, we shockingly learn that Samson is a climate activist who is now facing legal repercussions, as Delilah has exposed his plans to shut off a road as a protest.
Samson’s actor, James Eykyn, touched upon this mirror of contemporary political injustices in the post-screening talk, stating that Samson’s story addresses how“fiction draws from the real world.”
“You have climate activists in jail for Zoom calls,” Eykyn said. “People speaking up for Palestine being prosecuted” for demanding an end to imperialism and genocide. These are additional realities to the modern Londoner, as several people are coming together under various organisations to demand change in this country and overseas, and hosting protests and fundraising events throughout London, whose streets are painted and stickered with protest symbols and slogans the media is now trying to brand as acts of terrorism.
Last up is Delilah, the seemingly hard hearted pusher who takes care of number one, but, as actor Laila Kiki Kondo reframes this is,”someone who will fight for her friends but won’t sugar coat things.”
We see how Delilah has to work three jobs to survive while chasing her dreams of owning her own bakery company and creating a social media presence to help. Delilah is persistently headstrong and determined, wanting the best for her friends, demanding it, even if that means spitting the hard truth. She comes to serve Toby at one of her jobs in a coffee shop, who, despite his own woes, gifts her some words of inspiration and affirmation about striving for her dreams despite hardships, which land perfectly. This illustrates the one-off yet deeply important interactions between Londoners which keep it going, almost as its heartbeat.
“Delilah is a by any means necessary sort of person and will do all that she can to make her dreams a reality,” Kondo added. “If that means working three jobs to survive, then she will work three jobs.”
This aspect of the character’s life bleeds into the reality of countless individuals, virtually everyone living in London. We have to admire Deliha’s persistence and determination, threaded by understanding the unfair realities of today as gelled with that dream she won’t let die.
Storeys Apart is an entertaining, charming and heartwarming inspection into the highs and lows of living in today’s London.
