Everything Theatre Reviews, interviews and news for theatre lovers, London and beyond
SPID Theatre makes art that advocates housing justice. Their high quality youth theatre takes place on council estates. Using theatre, film and radio they call for investment in social housing’s heritage and in young peoples’ futures. Work is created using a mix of verbatim testimonies with scripted dialogue to celebrate and champion estates’ history, community and spirit.
Everything Theatre is always happy to support our friends at SPID (Social Political Innovative Direct) Theatre, a charity specialising in remarkable work with young people on council estates. We were delighted to be invited to the recent relaunch of their newly refurbished theatre space in the community rooms at Kensal House, an historic modernist council block just a mile from the tragic Grenfell Tower, with whom they share a landlord, the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea.
Where Grenfell had fire, Kensal House has had floods. From relentless water ingress to extreme mould and damp, the wellbeing of residents has been horrendously affected for years. Desperate for action from their landlord when none was forthcoming, SPID has been a vocal campaign group in a successful community class action against the Council, which found they should pay compensation and initiate a capital works programme to overcome the neglect. The theatre renovation is part of a £3m project to bring the estate up to standards.
Throughout these challenging years, SPID’s work has been key to engaging young people in finding their own voices, advocating for justice in social housing, creating innovative and collaborative productions, whilst celebrating the heritage and community of the estate. At the launch event a production of Smile!, by Artistic Director Helena Thompson, speaks allegorically of resistance and community empowerment, whilst actively creating the means for young performers and creatives to examine and enact fiercely relevant social issues of race, climate misogyny and the abuse of power.
Based in a women’s correctional facility in a parallel world, there’s a darkness to the story; dystopian hints of George Orwell and Anthony Burgess’ Clockwork Orange, where institutional gaslighting and processes of divide and conquer damage community. It portrays a patriarchal society where profit is king and challenging the norm is punishable by incarceration and painful discipline. The women are numbers rather than names, in a dehumanising process of social management that makes questioning government unacceptable and devalues human life. So many of these themes of inequality resonate bitterly in our living memory of the actions of a Conservative government during the pandemic, so not so far from this world.
There are strong performances here from the fifteen young cast members, ages 13 to 25, who are vibrantly enthused, and the show is given texture by their disparate ages and styles. Michael Sookan brings a bold blend of clowning and chilling terror as the Examiner, which contrasts beautifully with the human dignity of Ashley Mpanzu’s Instructor. There’s underlying frailty and desperation in Patrick Abbott’s desperately comic Master, and gentle majesty in Danielle Laurance’s beautiful singing.
Director Kiki Turner-Brightman celebrates how – much more than the final product – it’s the process that puts the true value in this community performance. Over an intense two week period this group of young people have poured their energies into the piece, their confidence in themselves and in each other growing with collaboration and articulation of their own empowerment, along with knowledge of owning this new, impressive space. For Kiki, it’s the first time they’ve directed someone else’s work so it’s been a challenge creating this vision in such a short time, but one that’s enormously rewarding across its wider achievements.
The existence of this refurbished theatre space offers focus and accessibility to valuable youth work. It recognises the validity of giving visibility to community stories, of regeneration, and in its being offers hope to estates nationwide that they too can have the recognition they deserve. But what SPID really need now is the financial compensation they are owed to provide security in their immediate future. Until that comes, their work is at risk of closure.
If you want to learn more about SPID and their vital community work, visit their website here.
