Craig Cowell

14 Albion Street Craig Cowell

14 Albion Street is the ongoing story of three Lancashire friends, living life at the bottom of the social food chain in the mid 90's. For the lads, each day blends effortlessly into the next as life is consumed by banter, beer and boredom in a damp terraced house rented to Wesley (on the dole) by the local council. Keith is the other resident in the house (illegally) - a part time school bus driver who is religiously visited by Johnny, a dole claimer and worker on the side, whose only interest is the next pretty girl to take his fancy. Wesley, not the brightest specimen, sits nervously in the middle of the two friends' ruthless battles of intellect and endless ridicule of each other as the three lads bypass the toils of modern life. Although street-wise, and with a strong vocal perception of life which is expressed freely and relentlessly, Keith and Johnny's intelligence, on some levels, is not too distant from that of Wesley's, for whom solace is found in their guidance, albeit twisted. Thrown together through lack of prospects, the three lads are bonded by the cycle of time and an understanding that the place they live is the place they belong.