Crookesmoor is the centrepiece of popular Sheffield writer and creator CK Goldiing’s latest work, ‘The Bench’.
The seven-part series was filmed entirely on a bench on Harcourt Road, speaking to whoever happened to walk past that night on a given theme.
CK said: “I found making the series a joy. It was a revelation, I learnt so much about the process of trusting what you consider to be one of your biggest strengths.
“The idea was quite loose and open to a lot of ideas. Every time you leave with an idea, the universe conspires to give you something beautiful.”
CK was inspired to make the series after making a video buying food for homeless people on West Street.
He said: “That video did better than I thought it was going to. Sometimes I would go for late-night walks and it just hit me, all the videos I tend to make are in the day time. So I thought if the stakes would be higher in the night when it feels a bit weird.”
One of the standout moments of the series arises in episode four, where CK meets a man called Jason who tells him about how he has been looking after his mother with Alzheimer’s.
“Mums are a very sensitive thing, I thought if you do this for long enough, someone will share something very personal in their life. I had it in my head, I wasn’t expecting it to happen so quickly”, CK said.
One creative decision Goldiing made was to include the stretches of time where he did not speak to anybody in the series.
He said: “It was less a case of people not wanting to talk, but simply nobody being around. I thought when it comes to the edit, I don’t want to pander to short attention spans.
“With The Bench, I was quite happy to let it breathe. I knew to keep people engaged, I had to share some of my own personal thoughts and dreams.”
Not content with just the one series, CK indicated that he would be happy to film more.
He said: “I would love to do another series. I’d like to do it somewhere else, with a travelling bench every series.”
You can watch The Bench for free on YouTube here.
