Dying light: rehearsals for The Nine O’Clock Slot. Photograph: Phoebe Cooke
A new play exploring the rise of modern-day ‘paupers’ funerals’ is to explore the taboo subject of death using poetry, humour as well as audiovisual and physical comedy.
The Nine O’Clock Slot, by East End-based theatre company ice&fire and directed by Lisa Spirling, retraces the lives of four individuals buried in communal graves and will be the first play staged in Shoreditch’s Red Gallery.
Annecy Lax, who co-wrote the play with Hannah Davies, says they were started writing it after developing a fascination with the death industry and the Dickensian concept of ‘paupers’ funerals’.
“We became really interested that in a city where there is so much and so many people, that people can die alone with absolutely nothing, so that the state has to take care and look after their arrangements,” she says.
Lax and Davies interviewed local hospital chaplains, mortuary assistants, soup kitchen helpers and hospice carers for the play.
They also spoke to women in their 70s, 80s and 90s at a community centre in Tower Hamlets who spoke with humour and levity about dying and inspired the play’s title.
“The 9 o’clock slot is the one nobody wants. It’s a real mark of shame if you have to have an early morning funeral,” Lax explains.
The Nine O’Clock Slot is at Red Gallery, 1-3 Rivington Street EC2A 3DT from 26 March until 19 April. For tickets seewww.iceandfire.co.uk.
When Roy Williams’ debut play was shown at Stratford East 18 years ago the odds were stacked against him, not least because few black playwrights at the time were enjoying mainstream success.
But ever since childhood, growing up in Notting Hill on a diet of seventies TV drama, Williams believed he had something to say, and his career to date has justified that conviction, with a string of celebrated plays about black British life, as well as an OBE, to his credit.
This month Williams returns to Stratford East for the first time, with Kingston 14, a play that looks beyond Williams’ usual compass of black Britain to Jamaica, the ‘sunshine isle’ from where both his parents emigrated.
“It’s a drama that deals with levels of police corruption in the Jamaican police force but it’s also really about people living in Jamaica doing what they do to get by,” says Williams.
Kingston 14 is the postcode of an area of Kingston called Denham, with the play the story of a British police officer who is sent there to investigate the murder of a British tourist. The investigation runs into difficulties when a gang leader, played by musician turned actor Goldie, is brought into custody.
“The play lifts the lid on an aspect of Jamaica I would say not many people have seen,” says Williams.
“If you put aside all the sun, the sea and all the stereotypes it’s quite a poor island actually and poverty breeds criminality and corruption so that’s what I’m pinpointing in the play.”
A lot of Williams’ plays are explicitly about race: from the racial tensions and football yobbery of Sing Yer Hearts Out For the Lads tothe award-winning Sucker Punch and most recently his play Advice For the Young at Heart which looked into the 1958 Notting Hill race riots.
Kingston 14, however, is not overtly about race, and while featuring an all-black cast, Williams is ambivalent about the label ‘black theatre’.
“Naturally because I’m black that’s going to be my point of reference. But my plays are for everybody. I don’t just write for black audiences, I write for all audiences that are interested in theatre,” he says.
Williams’ recent plays have been staged at the Royal Court and National Theatre, but the playwright is quick to recognise his debt to Stratford East, who took a risk on him all those years back.
“They say it’s a people theatre and it really does live up to that. Audiences that see a play at Stratford East are very involved and supportive, and unlike any other.”
Williams, now 45, remains prolific – with a new play emerging nearly every year. He insists though that writing plays never gets easier.
“Once you’ve finished one play you go back to the beginning and stare at that computer screen and try and work out what’s the next thing that’s going to come flowing out of my brain,” he reveals.
“No it never gets easier and it shouldn’t – it’s flipping hard writing a play. But if I didn’t like it I would have stopped doing it long ago.”
Kingston 14 is at Stratford East, Gerry Raffles Square, Greater Theatre Square, E15 1BN from 28 March – 28 April
Bloody revenge and stage violence are par for the course in Jacobean tragedies, but a new version of Webster’s The Duchess of Malfi intends to balance the macabre with a nuanced exploration of gender.
The play, in which the marriage of the Duchess to someone beneath her social class leads to her brothers exacting revenge, has been reinterpreted as a ‘transgender fable’, with a new title, Cover Her Face, and third gender performer La JohnJoseph playing the lead.
The adaptation, to be staged this month at Bethnal Green Working Men’s Club, moves the play from the court of Amalfi some 500 years ago to London’s east end at the tail end of the 1950s.
“We’re setting it in this gay gangster socialite criminal underworld,” explains La JohnJoseph, a performance artist and writer who divides his time between East London and Berlin.
“We’re exploring the same power dynamics but with a new aesthetic. It’s all fifties – the music, the costumes, everything. We’ve been studying dialects and accents; half the cast will be speaking with Cockney accents, which are very different from contemporary ones, and the rest will have this Mayfair-type accent. We’re hoping to dislocate people’s understanding of the play when they come and see it like this.”
Jacobean drama has always lent itself to gender discourse. Women, in the 17th century, were not permitted to act on stage, so plays were written with men playing female characters in mind.
Taking its lead from this, La JohnJoseph will be the only non-male member of the cast. “I’m in the middle, in that shimmering grey area,” he quips. “There are no straight female roles at all, so all of the interactions have become very queered.
“There are some incestuous undertones, bisexual undertones and transgender ones – it’s quite a free for all and I think it’s very timely actually that we’re doing the piece like this.”
La JohnJoseph cites Australian supermodel Andrej Pejic as an example of how transgender people are coming to the forefront of public consciousness. “People are aware not only of the right of transsexual people who change their gender but also that the gender spectrum is wider than previously acknowledged,” he says.
In the original play, the Duchess suffers for marrying someone from the lower classes. In Cover Her Face (the new title is from a line in the play) the emphasis is on the Duchess trying to live as a woman against the wishes of her conservative brothers.
“Gender is a cornerstone of how we understand ourselves and in this play everyone is trying to shut the Duchess up and lock her away,” La JohnJoseph says.
“I’ve most definitely channelled my experiences, both pleasant and unpleasant, of being a gender non-conformist into this role.”
Cover Her Face is at Bethnal Green Working Men’s Club, 42 Pollard Street, E2 6NB from 10-15 February.
Adrian Richards and Alix Ross star in Advice for the Young at Heart. Photograph: Sarah London
Much has been said and written about the riots which swept London in 2011. Everyone from politicians to social workers have voiced their opinions on the state of our youth and their future.
Attempting to get to grips with these issues, Advice for the Young at Heart sets out to examine both contemporaneous teenage experiences and young struggles from a previous era.
Award-winning playwright Roy Williams sets the scene with simultaneous plots relating the 1958 Notting Hill race riots and the events of 2011, telling its story through the eyes of 17 to 21-year-old characters.
The play, commissioned by the Shoreditch based Theatre Centre, features a cast of four relatively undiscovered emerging talents and specifically targets young audiences aged 14 and over.
This need to appeal to a current audience is reflected in segments of dialogue such as this from the sole female part, Candice: “Join a crew, you get family. You get brers who will die for you. Stand up for you. You get respect.”
Given the widespread frustration and disillusionment that large sections of inner city youth have recently expressed combined with the perception they are being ostracised, the goal of catering a play towards them is particularly ambitious.
With the direction and target of Roy Williams’ writing in mind, the acid test for the production will be the response of young people.
So far the play is doing well, with its autumn tour of schools and public venues across the country being extended to the spring.
A promotional YouTube video features a teacher of Year 11 drama students, who said: “It’s a piece of theatre which genuinely appeals to a young audience, which they didn’t find patronising or boring.”
The same clip also features pupils describing the production with words such as ‘amazing, brilliant, real, educational, moving, refreshing and emotional.’
While any such public airing will clearly highlight the most positive views, the fact that so many teenagers seem to relate to the play is notable.
Beyond the theatre, the need for young people to find their place in the world remains as strong as ever, especially after the London riots, and any attempt to encourage this is worthy of some attention.
Th is month sees the broadcast of an ambitious international project featuring 30 new one-person shows performed in 30 homes across the capital. Organised by the theatre Royal Stratford East, the Home Theatre project aims to link boroughs with extremely low arts engagement to more a ffluent areas of the city, with artists working on the project taking inspiration from the stories of those hosting the performances in their own homes.
Run in partnership with the Festival Internacional de Cenas em Casa (International Festival of Home Theatre), the idea to bring Home Theatre to the UK was inspired by artistic director Kerry Michael’s trip to Brazil earlier this year.
“Home Theatre is about staging performances in people’s familiar surroundings. In a sense, we will be serving our audiences and letting them be our masters. It’s about telling great stories from across the capital,” he says.
“It’s also a great opportunity for artists and London audiences to come together, share a meal and have an open dialogue about their stories and the project.”
Exploring the relationship between art and audiences, Home Theatre extends the legacy of the theatre Royal Stratford’s East Open Stage project, a radical community-curated programme aimed at rede fining who decides and makes theatre and how it is made and presented.
The collaboration between the 30 hosts, artists and fi lmmakers should generate exciting new ideas and insights for staging and creating theatre outside of established venues and in the very heart of local communities.
For your viewing pleasure, a film of each bespoke performance will be released every 30 minutes on the theatre’s online performance platform and at the theatre itself as part of the Home Th eatre 30 x 30 digital event taking place on Saturday 9 November.
Now in its eleventh year, Tower Hamlets Council presents A Season of Bangla Drama, a vibrant celebration of local Bengali talent.
Taking place throughout November the festival includes an array of drama and discussion performed at a variety of venues across Spitalfields and Bethnal Green, continuing its relevance to residents of Tower Hamlet today.
The programme combines long-established aspects of Bengali tradition with innovative productions exploring recent developments in the culture, continuing with its deliverance of social history.
Drawing inspiration from the literary tales of Bengali polymath Rabindranath Tagore, a number of the performances bring to life issues that still resonate through society decades after having first been written.
As part of the festival Wilton’s Music Hall will be featuring “Unsung”, a performance inspired by one of Tagore’s most haunting short stories. Bringing the story into the contemporary space of modern day London it tells the tale of two brothers and their wives and the horrific events that take place within their family unit, exploring issues of female oppression in society that still remain topical to this day.
Francis Mayhew, Artistic Director at Wilton’s said: “A Season of Bangla Drama, presented by Tower Hamlets Council, is a growing artistic success story and we are really delighted to be supporting the next generation of new artists and new work.”
The hall will also host a performance from Komola Collective that provides an insight into the events that unfolded during the 1971 war of independence struck Bangladesh. The war displaced over 30 million people and saw large-scale atrocities occur, and “Birangona: Women of War” displays such crimes against women through the story of one woman and her family.
The festival aims to entertain its audiences while facilitating discussion on hard-hitting topics that often go untold.
A Season of Bangla Drama is on at multiple locations throughout East London from 2nd – 24th November. Prices and times vary.
Falling for dance: work by Kimberly Clarke to be performed at Emerge 13
Opportunities for budding dance choreographers to try out work in front of an audience are limited, which is why dance producer Adam Towndrow founded Emerge, which returns to The Space this month.
Emerge 13 will give choreographers a five-night run at the Isle of Dogs theatre, allowing them to see their work brought to life on stage.
“It’s a unique platform that really helps to grow the piece,” says Towndrow.
“Th e work is seen by an audience each night which means the artist can say ‘oh right that’s interesting… I’ll do something di fferent next time’. You can’t always do that if you’re touring.”
Th e programme includes work by Lewis Major, a highly rated Australian choreographer and dancer, and the world premiere of Wolfpack, a new piece by John Ross, winner of the Matthew Bourne 2014 New Adventures Choreographer Award.
“His particular piece is going to be filmed and taken to the V&A – to be preserved on on some dusty DVD probably,” jokes Towndrow.
“Th ere’s a lot of anticipation and I know it’ll be really dynamic.”
Choreographers from all over the UK and beyond will take part in Emerge 13, which is run by the established C-12 Dance Theatre.
However, Towndrow is keen for the project to make an impact on a local level.
“Part of our ethos is to bring movement and dance to people who haven’t experienced it before,” he says.
“Since we did the show last year [at The Space] there’s been loads of dance here that’s been well-received by local people so it goes to show that trying out something for the fi rst time can have positive eff ects on the community.”
Emerge 13 is at The Space, 269 Westferry Road, E14 3RS from 5-9 November/12-16 November
Fangs for the memories: Jonathan Goddard as Count Dracula. Photograph: Mark Bruce Company
American TV show True Blood and the phenomenally successful Twilight fantasy saga have in recent years served as an introduction for many to the gothic vampire myths that seem to be forever reinventing themselves in one medium or another.
Who of a slightly older generation does not remember Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and are there still people around who recall the hysteria about the so-called Highgate Vampire in the 1970s?
Frankly the list of vampire-related fads is endless.
So given the public’s perennial lusting after bloodsucking fiends, now would seem as good a time as any to stage an innovative dance theatre production of Dracula, and the atmospheric surroundings of Wilton’s Music Hall in Shadwell would seem to be the perfect venue for this.
Not to mention that October means Halloween and autumnal ghouls and spectres.
“At the end of the day, so much of the book is about sex,” says director Mark Bruce, whose Mark Bruce Company has endeavoured to stay (relatively) loyal to the original Victorian-era novel by Bram Stoker – more than can be said for some Hollywood film versions.
“It’s such a strange, elusive book. There is something of the superstitious dark fairy tale about it,” says Mr Bruce.
“To me the story is less interesting when it’s modernised. I’ve set this version in Victorian times when there was all this taboo, and I think the story makes the most sense in that context.
“Nowadays we’re liberated, so it’s not so shocking anymore, but in the book there is a scene in which Mina Harker drinks Count Dracula’s blood, and at the time that would have been seen as an outrageous thing to write.”
A set built of wrought iron adds to the Victorian feel, while the eclectic soundtrack includes music from Bach and Mozart as well as contemporary classical composers like György Ligeti, who appropriately enough was born in Transylvania.
What’s more, this low-fi Dracula eschews digital wizardry in favour of what Bruce calls “traditional tricks”.
The director says that while this Dracula might not fit neatly into the conventional horror category, it contains “moments of disturbing intensity”.
The company has purchased generous quantities of good quality fake blood, and Mr Bruce says “there will be blood where blood is needed”, adding: “I hope the show gets under people’s skin.”
Of Wilton’s, reputed to be the oldest surviving music hall in the world, Mr Bruce says: “You walk into the place and you sense it’s full of ghosts. It’s perfect.”
The East End itself is an appropriate location because of its associations with the darkest aspects of Victorian London – the poverty condemned by writers like Charles Dickens and the vice exposed most notably, and bloodily, by the Whitechapel murders.
The show’s cast includes Jonathan Goddard, described by The Observer as “Britain’s finest male contemporary dancer”, who plays the infamous Count whose sinister ambitions tear at the heart of an outwardly chaste and respectable society.
Dracula is on at Wilton’s Music Hall, 1 Graces Alley, E1 8JB, until 2 November
Grand Guignol venue: The Space in the Isle of Dogs.
The story of one of the most feared horror theatres in the world will be told this month in a production at The Space, an arts centre in a formerly derelict church in the Isle of Dogs.
The Grand Guignol, written by East End playwright Francis Kobayashi, chronicles the story of the titular Parisian theatre that was also known as “the theatre of fear and terror”.
However, the production will concentrate on the history of the theatre itself, rather than just on the macabre and bloody scenes in which it specialised.
Tales will be told by characters including Maxa, the “most assassinated woman in the world”, and Andre Lorde, the “Prince of Terror”.
Hardcore horror fans fear not though – director Adam Hemming says that there will “definitely be some blood” in some of the shorter scenes of the play, but he adds that the theatre itself is the focus.
“It will be about the real life stories of the actors and staff, not just recreating the blood and gore of the theatre’s plays,” he says. “In the early days of the theatre the plays were much more about putting the lower classes and criminals on stage to perform.
“The history of the place is what the play will be focused on. It’s larger than just blood and gore.”
The Grand Guignol is on at The Space, 269 Westferry Road, E14 3RS until 2 November.
