Local boy's Play at the Wood Green Empire

This image shows the programme cover for Ted Willis's 1948 stage play of No Trees in the Street. It premiered at the St James's Theatre in London from 27 July to 28 August 1948. It then toured to venues including the Theatre Royal in Leeds, the Liverpool Playhouse and the Bristol Old Vic. Not considered one of Willis's successes, the writer had better luck with a 1959 film version starting Sylvia Syms and Herbert Lom.

The work is of particular interest to us in Harringay since Willis grew up at 55 Stanley Road just to the east of Green Lanes. Both the play and film explore the tragic downward spiral of a teenage boy, Tommy, who turns to crime in an attempt to escape poverty, contrasted with his sister Hetty's efforts to keep the family grounded. Willis wrote that it was "Loosely based on characters I'd met in childhood in the dingy back streets of Tottenham, I think I wrote it to exorcise certain ghosts." (Willis, Ted (1991). Evening all : fifty years over a hot typewriter. MacMillan. p. 75).

People of a certain vintage might know WIllis better for his authorship of Dixon of Dock Green.