Skip to main content
NSDF Logo NSDF
Donate
What's On
NSDF HUB
What We Do
What We Do
What is NSDF all about?
NSDF HUB NSDF CREATES Access Toolkit How to Enter a Show Our Yearly Festival The Bigger Room Project
Support Us
Support Us
How can you support NSDF's work?
Alumni Supporters Scheme Our Supporters Make a Donation Leave a Legacy
Our Story
Our Story
Find out more about the 65 year old Festival.
Our Mission Our History Our Principles Our People Our Alumni
The Fourth Wall
The Fourth Wall
Read articles from Noises Off, our Festival Magazine, and catch the latest from Team NSDF at Blogs & News
Blogs & News Noises Off
Register
Noises Off Article

Unseen

Published on
7th April 2020

The cast of Seen, one of the selected shows for NSDF this year, are still hopeful, says Annie John

Share this article

There is trepidation as the cast step on stage to perform Seen in front of eighty year 10s in a secondary school in Plaistow on a cold morning in January. It’s still a work in progress. We have no set. Or lights. Just some bodies in a room. And eighty expectant faces waiting for something good to happen. 

It started in autumn 2019 with a provocation from Zest theatre company to create a short response to the concept of ‘Youthquake’, the subject matter for their upcoming (and brilliant) production. After sharing a short scratch performance with Zest in October, we developed the piece and by February we had toured it to hundreds of 14-16 year olds in and around East London.

We are based in a sixth form college in Newham, which has both the youngest as well as the most ethnically diverse population in the country. Over five years of extreme austerity, Newham was forced to reduce its spending on youth services by 81%. The fallout from this was our starting point. We had no idea how personal and angry (and sweaty) the show would become.

In the early stages we play games. We make lists. We tell each other stories. We listen to Kendrick Lamar and Nina Simone. We laugh (and sometimes cry). And then the piece is pulled into sharp focus by external events.

In November, Moses is late to rehearsals because he has been stopped and violently searched by two police officers on his own street. It’s not the act of searching him that upsets him, it’s the disapproving looks from the neighbours' windows that hurt him the most. Brexit rolls on as Boris describes Muslim women as ‘letterboxes’ and black people as ‘piccaninnies’. We meet the morning after the Tory landslide. There is genuine shock and despair at the result. We create a scene in which two actors just fight and keep fighting until they can’t go on. It’s durational and sweaty and painful to watch but it ends in an embrace that is tender and full of hope. And that’s what we hold on to. We want to tell our stories but not just through the lense of the victim or the voiceless or the violated. We decide to end the piece with a moment of cleansing, kindness and hope (and some very loud Kanye West, obviously).

Halfway through the show in Plaistow, George plays ‘Never Have I Ever’ with the audience. He picks up strips of paper at random from a pile on the floor. ‘Never have I ever lied to my mother’. There is laughter as hands go up in the audience. ‘Never have I ever tripped in public and acted like it was intentional’. More laughter. ‘Never have I ever been followed round a shop by a security guard’. There is a silence as the majority of hands are raised in grim recognition.

After the show in a feedback session, a boy says ‘I felt like you were speaking just to me. I’ve never seen a show that talks about our lives like that’. The teacher asks the group to summarise the show in one word. ‘Hope’ comes the response. We would have loved to have performed this show at the NSDF, but for now, this is enough.

@noffmag / noff@nsdf.org.uk

Latest from Noises Off

Latest from Noises Off

See all
NSDF 2022

Powerful discomfort

14th May 2022

Nathan Hardie on the confronting NSDF Late show MANIC

Read More
NSDF 2022

To meet us here

15th April 2022

Taiwo Ava Oyebola interrogates the history and heritage of Them

Read More
NSDF 2022

Up down up down

15th April 2022

Zoe Callow gets to grips with the staging of Great Mother - Iya Ayaba

Read More

Sign-up to our newsletter

Sign-up for our newsletter
Follow us
Facebook Twitter Instagram Youtube
Contact Us Frequently Asked Questions Young Person Protection Policy Website Accessibility Privacy Policy
© NSDF Site by Grandad.digital
Sign-up to our newsletter

Sign up to our newsletter to stay up to date on all our upcoming events, information and news. Read our Privacy Policy to learn more about how we process your data.