26 Jul
Posted by Charlotte George
A few months ago, we placed an ad in the Metro and Evening Standard:
“iceandfire theatre is seeking interviews with Londoners who are living in poverty (on low wages, long-term unemployed, homeless, living in temporary accommodation) who would like their stories to be told. £40 cash offered. Anonymity guaranteed.”
The response was immediate and overwhelming. Many more people than we have the capacity to speak with got in touch. Since April, we have conducted 30 in-depth face-to-face interviews with some of the respondents. As part of the work we are doing with Trust for London, we are interested in building a human profile of what poverty in London looks and feels like. Some of these stories will be included in our outreach script Broke, which is regularly updated. Some will inspire a new piece of theatre we are planning for the summer of 2011. Over the next few months, we’ll be blogging about some of the people we’ve met. Today, we’ll hear from ‘Brian’ in his own words.
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19 Jul
Posted by saradoctors
I was in a disused World War II bunker under Dalston Junction, trying to convince Christine – writer, Artistic Director, and (most importantly) my new boss – that this bunker could, like, you know, really be Iraq.
Or, for that matter, Gaza. This could be where Mexican journalist Lydia Cacho was held hostage after implicating powerful politicians and businessmen in a child pornography ring. This could be any bombed-out, deserted, haunted, flooded, squatted, house of horrors from any war zone, natural disaster or interplanetary attack from the dawn of the industrial age to the imagined post-apocalyptic future. This could be the scene of the crime, the site of an unspeakable atrocity, or the secret safe house where plans and ideas and revolutions are born.
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24 May
Posted by Charlotte George
There’s an interview in today’s Metro with ‘rockpera’ start Meatloaf, where he is lamenting the death of the album due to current zeitgeist of downloading individual tracks. The ‘itunes effect’, he claims has caused us all to be lazy listeners and that “ten years ago … You couldn’t just buy four songs off the album. It’s terrible”….
Hmmm, terrible for whom, Mr Loaf? Terrible for us, not having the gift of your divine musicality in its full LP glory, or terrible for you as you realise that your bank balance is forcing you to bow to your greater masters, the fickle and devious audience, and actually provide what they want? Because, you see, not everybody wants to sit through an hour and a half of self-indulgent waffle to get to the three or four songs that they actually like, so what’s the harm? – you might, in fact introduce new listeners who may not have bought your album but actually quite like your single (my dad being case in point).
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05 May
Posted by Charlotte George
Asylum Dialogues, Sheffield University, 19.04.2010
‘How come Mary got moved all over the country and put in prison?’
As we squeezed one more group onto the tables at the back, closing the doors on the 130 people packed into the room, it was clear the word about this show had spread far and wide. As the home of Actors for Human Rights North, Sheffield has seen its fair share of AFHR plays by now, but it’s clear that this diverse city still has audiences to be found. One new audience member posed the question ‘How come Mary got moved all over the country and put in prison?’ I’m always happy to hear questions such as these as it means we’re not just preaching to the converted (I’d be happier if the question was no longer needed…!) How to find a succinct answer? Gina Clayton one of the post show speakers and author of Textbook on Immigration and Asylum Law gave a clear response: ‘these people get caught up in a system that is broken down’. At the heart of what we do with Actors for Human Rights is bringing the voices affected by these ‘broken down systems’ to audiences encouraging them to think about what they can do to help. The other panel speaker, Sam, who is an active volunteer in Sheffield talked to the audience about ways of taking action such as volunteering with CDAS, Conversation Clubs, ASSIST, City of Sanctuary and how the smallest efforts can go a very long way. Looking round the room at the end with everyone eagerly studying their copy of 12 Things You Can Do it seems clear that these voices were inspiring.
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04 May
Posted by Charlotte George
In mid-April, we work-shopped the first draft of On the Record at the National Theatre Studio. A wonderful gift for which we are extremely grateful. Over two days, we prepared the play for a public reading, with the help of director Ed Viney (a former Director in Residence at the Studio) and a lovely cast – Lucy May Barker, Toby Wharton, Christopher Simpson, Ajay Chhabra, Sasha Behar and Jan Goodman. As well as the opportunity to get feedback on the script from the invited audience, it also allowed us to see what we weren’t able to see when the play existed only on paper. Some bits worked, others didn’t. Some scenes were too superficial – others overwritten. Is it clear what is holding all of these stories together? What are we leading the audience to? Should this character even be in the play?
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