Made in England

The M27 snakes across Hampshire from the fringes of the New Forest, skirting Southampton and Portsmouth and into West Sussex. Few of us haven't been on at least part of it at some stage in our lives.

M27 traffic jam

As part of the Made in England project, celebrating our artistic creativity, BBC Radio Solent has worked with three local theatre groups to compile travellers' stories for a unique new interactive radio play.

Forest Forge Theatre Company from Ringwood, Southampton’s Nuffield Theatre and Solent People's Theatre from Portsmouth joined forces to create a drama about the one thing that joins them all – the M27 motorway.

The project launched on Julian Clegg's breakfast show last year. Listeners called in their droves to relate their stories of momentous journeys and epic traffic jams.

Workshops

Then the theatre groups began a series of workshops with community groups to gather their traffic jam stories and find out a lot more about their attitudes to driving and to other drivers.

Play workshops

Children from the Oak Lodge Special School told of how cars are "killing the earth" and spoke of how angry their parents get at the behaviour of other drivers.

Asian elders from Southampton told of being trapped on the M27 for 8 hours at a time.

And the Forest Forge Youth Theatre shared their stories of run-ins with speed cameras and embarrassment on the school coach.

Supported by Arts Council SE.

Drama

With a huge wealth of material at their disposal, the theatre companies each brought in a group of actors and began to improvise and create characters and scenarios under the watchful eye of award winning dramatist Mike Walker who turned all that work into a final script.

The drama was recorded on location and you can now listen to the play here on bbc.co.uk/hampshire.

The project has been partly funded by the Arts Council England South East through Grants for the Arts.