On 2 September 1967, dozens of people witnessed bright lights in the sky and a UFO landing in a field beside the Bentilee housing estate. At the time this was the largest council estate in Europe, and today it remains a sprawling labyrinth of houses, churches, schools, shops, and community buildings.

In archive news footage from the time, several witnesses give their accounts of the incident. Local woman Mrs Bowen recalls: “It seemed like a saucer, you know. It changed in different colours – a red, a greenish and a blue. I did get frightened of it when it dropped.”

Playwright, Deborah McAndrew, who has been researching with members of the community in Bentilee, who remembered the incident, said: “Three things attracted me to this story – a UFO, the 1960s as a time period, and Bentilee. This corner of the city is much maligned and often misunderstood. I didn’t know it well before I started to research this play, but it’s an extraordinary place – more like a village than an estate – and the people I’ve met there have been really inspiring.’

Director, Conrad Nelson, added: “Science Fiction is a genre I love and at Claybody Theatre we like to create an immersive world for our audience to experience. It’s exciting to be adapting our atmospheric venue, The Dipping House, to suggest something that could literally be out of this world.”

Bright Lights over Bentilee will premiere at The Dipping House, Spode Works, Stoke-on-Trent from 27 September – 12 October. For tickets and further details visit www.claybodytheatre.com