THE NEWHAM PLAYS

Created, produced, and written by James Kenworth, a long-term resident of Newham, East London, the Newham Plays are a series of localist-focussed plays rooted in Newham’s history, culture, and people. Performed in site-sympathetic locations in Newham, East London, they feature a ‘mixed economy’ casting of young people and professional actors. The series has originated a Pro-Localist approach to cultural engagement, in which the plays are partnered and supported by a nexus of local funders, partners and stakeholders. It has given 250 young people from diverse backgrounds the opportunity to engage in the arts and enhanced cultural provision in the area: playing a role in addressing historically low levels of cultural engagement in the borough. Participation in the plays and associated activities has developed the skills of the young people involved, built confidence, and boosted self-belief. Additionally, activity has benefited local organisations, raising awareness of key sites/ venues in Newham and the work of local charities.

Each production has presented its own opportunities and challenges. When Chaplin Met Gandhi (2012) told the true story of Gandhi meeting Charlie Chaplin in Canning Town, and was performed at Kingsley Hall, a community centre in Bow where Gandhi lived and stayed for three months in 1931. Revolution Farm (2014) was a new Orwell adaptation performed on an inner-city farm in Beckton with the special permission of the George Orwell Estate; A Splotch of Red: Keir Hardie in West Ham (2016) dealt with local political history and toured Newham Libraries and Community Links’ Neighbours Hall, where Hardie spoke at one of his many election rallies in Newham, and as a centre for social change, Will Thorne, Bertrand Russell and Sylvia Pankhurst were all to speak, or work, from there. Alice in Canning Town (2019) brought a new, multi-cultural, East End flavoured version of Lewis Carroll to a unique and unconventional accessible adventure playground in Canning Town. The plays have featured a hybrid casting of professional actors and local young people and have fully integrated both sets of casts in the texts and productions, fusing contemporary physicality’s and language, as drawn from and reflective of the young performers of Newham, with historical materials, adapting existing narratives/stories to the sited, locally specific, contexts.

The theatre practice I have originated, developed, and sustained in Newham for over a decade is a coherent body of research, investigating and revealing meaningful ways to embed the life of a play in the town, place, or community in which they are written, rehearsed, and performed. My theatre texts explore and respond to local history and culture, built on by the productions discovering ways to negotiate the relation of these texts to specific local sites. Through methodologies of adaptation/appropriation, historical research, dramaturgy, and site-responsive production techniques, my work takes as its wellspring the culture, history, and present community of Newham to investigate creative ways of valorising and privileging area and community, via the use of public spaces as performance auditoria, and the mixed economy participation of professional and local talent.

A ‘Newham Play’ needs to illuminate or unearth a ‘hand in glove’ congruence between physical site/space and subject matter. It should be apparent to an audience, especially (although not exclusively) a local one, why the play has a resonance, relevance and significance to their lives and for their community. The principal investigation behind the Newham Plays lies in exploring the question: how can iconic literary classics and historical drama/biography be reimagined and ‘localized’ to reflect a sense of a place, people and culture? How do plays set in the past hold up a mirror to the present, to make a ‘contemporary statement written for our times’? (Jellicoe 121) It is the development of a methodology of Pro-Localism that has enabled me to shift my interests in making theatre in the community, away from an overtly ‘worthy’, or primarily issue-led approach, and create an infrastructure of support in which to produce unconventional and unusual local stories for and about Newham.

I employ the term Pro-Localism in this thesis to describe the interrelationships between professional expertise/experience and local young talent, one that extends beyond the primary nexus of young people performing alongside professional actors. I have previously described the model of actors and young people working side by side in this thesis as a ‘mixed economy’ approach, and I use it to focus on the benefits of using performing arts to give young people a wider, rich learning experience. But if we broaden out the approach to include the relationship of funders, partners and stakeholders we can say confidently that there is a wider and richer nexus than originally envisaged.

One of the most fruitful, productive, and successful collaborations I’ve had in my writing career is with fellow playwright and good friend, James Martin Charlton. I don’t think I’ve ever really wanted to direct my own plays simply because I’ll readily admit I just don’t think I have the patience, tolerance, or ‘people management’ skills. I just want the actors to bloody well get on with it and do the play the way I’ve written it. End of story. That’s not exactly a helpful Director’s note. As well as being a playwright himself, JMC is an experienced, confident, and self-assured director; he’s also easy-going too. This is fortunate for me. His patience with me in the rehearsal room is impressive. I think we work well together. He knows my writing style inside out, understands both instinctively and intellectually how plays are put together, and our playwrighting heroes/icons are pretty much the same: Berkoff, Bond, Barker, Jim Cartwright, Tony Harrison. These mighty heroes all have one thing in common, of course: they are ‘theatrical’ writers, their words/language work best on stage, nowhere else, not TV, not film, not even radio. They’re the modern heirs to Shakespeare, Marlowe, Johnson. Just the kind of playwrights I like.

JMC has gone on to direct four of the Newham Plays: Revolution Farm, A Splotch of Red: Keir Hardie in West Ham, Alice in Canning Town, and Elizabeth Fry: Angel of the Prisons. He’s responded imaginatively, innovatively, and smartly to directing the plays in non-traditional, unorthodox spaces in Newham, including an inner-city farm, public libraries, and an adventure playground. It hasn’t been easy. We have only two weeks rehearsals to put the show together (the National Theatre get six or seven – oh the luxury). We have no lighting, no scenery, a bare minimum of props. There are no pre-show drinks. And no ice creams during the interval. And if it’s an outdoor show sometimes we must pray for the rain to go away so we don’t have to cancel a performance. In all of this, JMC has remained admirably calm under pressure and continues to crack niche left-field jokes that probably only he and I get. Which is just as well. Because you have to really care about this kind of theatre-making to be able to do it. It needs to mean something. To paraphrase Bill Shankly’s famous verdict on football: "Some people believe theatre is a matter of life and death, I am very disappointed with that attitude. I can assure you it is much, much more important than that." And that’s the only kind of person I want to let loose near my plays.