The Arbor Review

• 11th Mar 2011

The Arbor is a drama documentary about the life of Bradford based playwright Andrea Dunbar, her family and her daughter Lorraine. Told through archive footage and actors re-creating scenes from her plays on Arbor Street in Bradford where she grew up. The remaining part of the film is told via actual accounts of those involved being lip-synched by actors.

The story in this documentary is bleak beyond words as Dunbar herself grew up with an alcoholic father and then descended into alcoholism herself. Having three children with three different fathers her success as a writer was something that didn’t remove her from that world.  The archive footage shows Andrea on the estate talking about making Rita, Sue and Bob Too into a screenplay.  Some residents were less than impressed but she felt that only a few complaints wasn’t that bad really. The daughters’ voices can be heard through the performances of Christine Bottomley (Lisa) and Manjinder Virk (Lorraine) with the focus turning to Lorraine as the film goes on.

The scenes from her plays go to reveal something of Andrea’s life of a young girl living in Bradford. Her life consisted of massive arguments with her alcoholic father and discussions with girlfriends about sex with boys. Her decision to date an Asian man and then have a child with him seems to have alienated her further from the people that surrounded her, eventually ending up in her regretting the existence of Lorraine.

Following the death of Dunbar due to a brain hemorrhage at the age of 29 the films starts to concentrate fully on daughter Lorraine. As her life as a teenager spiraled out of control she became a prostitute and drug addict by the age of 17 and then gave birth to a son who was also born an addict. He later died at the age of two as a methadone addict and she was convicted of manslaughter and sent to prison in 2007.

The Arbor is a challenging film in terms of its style and content. The story of Dunbar and her family is one of extreme tragedy as desperate life choices end in utter disaster. It’s hard to feel sympathy even with Lorraine as she blames her mother for everything even though she died when she was very young. There is nowhere for the viewer to hide and the majority of people will choose simply not to listen. The British kitchen sink dramas of the 50s seem almost like comedies when compared to The Arbor.

Director, Clio Barnard, has produced a stunning documentary that will stay with anyone that chooses to experience it. There is a level of authenticity that is almost suffocating and as the film uses all those directly involved there is an almost complete picture as to what exactly happened to Dunbar and her family. Personally I’m not sure I could see myself watching The Arbor again, but as a one time experience it will stay with me for a very long time indeed.

Aled Jones