Channel 4 to air A1: The Road Musical

As part of Channel 4's Generation Next season, documentary new talent strand First Cut continues with Benjamin Till's debut half-hour film, A1: The Road Musical.

At 409 miles, the A1 is the longest road in Britain, linking the gleaming capitals of London and Edinburgh and traversing a forgotten world of soul-less commuter belt towns, service stations and emptying rural, and atrophied industrial, landscapes. Taking its inspiration from an eclectic musical vista - from jazz baroque to Gorecki and Noel Coward to The Clash - A1: The Road Musical travels the A1 from London to Edinburgh to tell the surprising stories of ordinary people who live or work along the road, sung and spoken by the people themselves.

Finding people local to the road through word of mouth and the press, Till interviewed them about their stories, adapted them as song lyrics and set them to music. He then coached, choreographed and directed their performances. From the man who is grieving the death of his brother in a hit and run, to the Polish immigrant singing the praises of his country's womenfolk, and the car crash survivor who sings of the unexpected kindness of a stranger to the man incensed that Berwick-upon-Tweed still stands on English soil, A1: The Road Musical is both a tragic-comic tale of love, life and lay bys on the A1 and a compelling portrait of contemporary Britain.

A1: The Road Musical opens at Smithfield Market in central London, at the start of the A1, with an ambitious "swingle music" ensemble sung by a chorus of car-bound commuters caught in the congested traffic of Central London, and pavement pedestrians, all voicing their innermost thoughts.

Travelling further north to Grantham we meet Janet Wood who survived a terrible collision in her car with a lorry. In the middle of a scrap-yard littered with the carcasses of crashed cars, Janet sings serenely to the unknown Samaritan who stopped in rush hour to reach through the broken window of her upside down car and hold her hand, slipping away when the emergency services arrived.

At Haworth Colliery in Nottinghamshire, we meet former-miner Derek Burton who is still angry that pit-closures saw the end of locally-sourced British coal. Joined by the Rossington Male Voice Choir, itself made up of some former miners, they perform a song that bitterly chronicles the times they endured during the local miners' strikes in the eighties. Twenty-eight miles up the A1, at Ferrybridge power station, the York University Chamber Orchestra joins in for a climactic conclusion which sees the orchestra perform against an industrial backdrop of piles of imported coal and dumper-trucks.

In Wetherby, West Yorkshire, the film tells the tragic story of Wayne Lawrence who is grieving the death of his brother, 16-year-old Danny, who was recently killed in a hit and run on the A1. At the scene of his death, from a flyover, Wayne and his grandmother take solace as she sings Danny's favourite hymn How Great Thou Art .

On the edge of the Scottish border, 53-year-old Michael Ross is fuming that Berwick upon Tweed is on English soil. He performs an angry punk piece in which he demands the return of the town to Scotland, singing directly to the prime-minister: ""Your border's out of order, Mr Brown. Go tell the slimy gits in Whitehall this is a Scottish town."

Linking all the film's performance pieces together, is Dave Brown, a trucker from Yorkshire. While the film follows just one journey from London to Edinburgh, Dave has driven the A1 three times a week for thirty years. If the average Briton spends ten days a year on the road, Dave is doing overtime - but, he says, he loves it.

The inspiration behind the musical came from Director/Composer Till himself. Benjamin Till has always lived alongside the A1 - as a child in Sandy, as a student in York, and as an adult in Archway, London. With the road running like a thread through his life, he wanted to celebrate its eccentricity - by immortalising in song the stories of the people who live and work along it.

"I see the people who live alongside the A1 as my neighbours," says Till, "and I wanted to celebrate the extraordinary stories in every ordinary life. It's always struck me that whether in times of great happiness or great sadness, people express themselves through song, so a musical felt like a fitting way to capture these peoples' stories."