{"id":395,"date":"2021-06-25T11:34:45","date_gmt":"2021-06-25T11:34:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/difference\/?p=395"},"modified":"2024-01-04T12:56:58","modified_gmt":"2024-01-04T12:56:58","slug":"a-different-disruption","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/difference\/a-different-disruption\/","title":{"rendered":"A Different Disruption"},"content":{"rendered":"

Author: <\/em>Dr Matthew Morrison<\/em><\/p>\n

On 27 February 2021, Guy Osborn and I produced an online play reading of Sus<\/em> by Barrie Keeffe. This was part of the Difference Festival, the annual event that has given Guy and I so many opportunities to share the story of the University\u2019s historic theatre \u2013 the Soho Poly \u2013 and help us shape its future.<\/p>\n

For those who don\u2019t already know, the Soho Poly was the forerunner of today\u2019s Soho Theatre on London\u2019s Dean Street. From 1972-1990 it occupied a tiny basement venue in our Riding House Street site, from where it produced scores of plays. Bob Hoskins, Simon Callow, Caryl Churchill, Ann Mitchell and Hanif Kureishi were just some of those who wrote, acted and directed in the space. But the person most associated with the theatre was the playwright Barrie Keeffe, probably best known for his 1980 film The Long Good Friday<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Keeffe\u2019s play, Sus, <\/em>was written and produced the year before that, in direct response to the discriminatory \u201cSuspected Persons\u201d stop and search laws of the time. It is a play of extraordinary power and subtlety, exposing casual and corrosive racism within the police force. The shocking murder of George Floyd in 2020 had given the play a new urgency, and we used the opportunity of the reading to work with colleagues from the Law School on a pre-event – an interview with the journalist and academic Professor Gary Younge, which forensically re-examined questions of race and discrimination in the UK today.<\/p>\n

Together, these events demonstrated one of the guiding philosophies underpinning all the work that Guy and I are involved in \u2013 the conviction that engagement with the past releases new ideas and energy for the future.<\/p>\n

This was particularly important when we were deciding what the artistic policy of the \u201crevived\u201d Soho Poly should be. We could, of course, have begun with a blank slate. But, with all options open to us, we would have found ourselves strangely directionless, worrying that our choices were somehow arbitrary. Instead, by looking closely at what the Soho Poly had been, we gave ourselves something specific to work with. We limited our options and focused our thinking. We had something to test, consider and reconsider.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s the most concrete example I can give of that process \u2013 The original Soho Poly was famous for lunchtime theatre, plays that took place from 1-2pm, and which you could watch while munching your sandwiches. Part of the reason for this new model was that it would make theatre more democratically accessible. Office workers could pop in on their lunchbreaks. Women – restricted by the expectation that childcare was primarily their responsibility – might find it easier to attend, and work at, a theatre during the day. Lunchtime venues were often in pubs, basement or attics. Places you didn\u2019t need to dress up for.<\/p>\n

These days, lunchtimes don\u2019t really exist. But something about this vision caught our imaginations, and from it, over time, we developed an idea that a new Soho Poly could similarly rethink assumptions around the \u201cproper\u201d time for experiencing the arts. That we could produce events across the working day, and perhaps, eventually, through the night as well. In doing so, we would increase opportunities for people to bring culture into their everyday lives. Rather than accepting that theatre was something that \u201cought to\u201d happen in evening leisure time, we decided to commit to \u201cDisrupting the Everyday\u201d with arts and culture.<\/p>\n

So that\u2019s where we are now. Over the past few years, Guy and I have programmed morning workshops for the local community, midday music gigs, poetry afternoons, and online theatre \u2013 after all, the online universe has altogether different rules of time and space.<\/p>\n

As we go forward \u2013 and there\u2019s a major fundraising effort going on at the moment<\/a>, as well as our \u00a388,000 award from the National Lottery Heritage Fund for an oral history and schools outreach project \u2013 this is the philosophy that will continue to define our work. It comes from the past, but it\u2019s all about the future.<\/p>\n

(Thanks, by the way, to everyone who made Sus<\/em> such a success: Dominika Opyrchal, Bradley Elliott, our co-producer Susan Croft at Unfinished Histories, director Olusola Oyeleye, actors Connor Cunningham, David Chafer and Tats Nyazika, panel guests Ann Mitchell and Roger Allam, and Peter Bonfield.)<\/p>\n

Author\u2019s biography:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Dr Matthew Morrison<\/a> is a Senior Lecturer and the Course Leader for \u201cCreative Writing and English Literature\u201d and \u201cCreative Writing and English Language\u201d.<\/p>\n

Alongside his academic work, he is a practising playwright with a passion for all forms of creative writing. His books and academic publications include \u201cThe Soho Theatre, 1968-1981\u201d (STR, 2017), \u201cKey Concepts in Creative Writing\u201d (Palgrave 2010), and \u201cBig Questions: Incredible Adventures in Thinking\u201d (Wizard Books, 2007).<\/p>\n

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His main research activities lie in the fields of new playwriting, dramaturgy, and the relationship between text and place.<\/p>\n

Image: Members of Sus <\/i>cast and crew,<\/i> from original 1979 production and this year\u2019s online revival.<\/em><\/p>\n

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