"Hub Song" – the World Around King’s Cross, tells how railways shape a community and its environment from the days of steam to the cross channel trains that will roll into their massive hanger at St Pancras International.

The songs and scenes are based on oral history recorded by the King’s Cross Voices Project. Reg Hopkins recalls King’s Cross Station as being "like a Turner painting as the smoke and steam whooshed forth". Robert Thorne, a railway historian, remembers seeing trees at the end of St Pancras Station when he was a boy, which convinced him that "as soon as the train left the station, we were in the countryside". Reg Fontanelle, a railway guard, says "You knew people by their names – it was friendly then." Clara Brown remembers: "Mum taught Madame Tussaud piano", Charles Chilton recalls a boy’s life around the streets of King’s Cross, Silvio Giovanelli remembers King’s Cross as "an Italian ghetto", much travelled Elizaa Ramirez tells of a happy life in Culross Buildings, in "short life community housing".

The show was previewed at Great Croft Centre and The Courtyard Theatre in June and July 2006, and is to be further developed.
 

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