Too true? The aesthetics and ethics of fact-based theatre
Event with Writers’ Guild of Great Britain
Wednesday July 6th 2016 from 4-5.30pm
Part of London Writers’ Week 2016
Fact-based theatre has been among the dominant drama forms of this century. Why is this so? How is it made and what is its political purpose? Is it just journalism carried on by other means? What are its rules of engagement? Where is it headed?
These questions will be discussed by the four leading writers of fact-based theatre. Alecky Blythe pioneered her tape-based play-making technique with Come out Eli and The Girlfriend Experience, going on to revolutionise the form with the musical London Road at the National Theatre. Like Alecky Blythe, novelist Gillian Slovo has written an interview-based drama about the 2011 London riots; she has also written Guantanamo: ‘Honor bound to defend freedom’ (with Victoria Brittain) and her Another World: Losing our children to Islamic state premiered at the National Theatre in May. Robin Soans’ interview-based political dramas include A State Affair, The Arab-Israeli Cookbook, Talking to Terrorists and Crouch, Touch, Pause, Engage. Richard Norton Taylor tribunal plays for the Tricycle Theatre include Half the Picture (arms for Iraq), Nuremberg, The Colour of Justice (the Stephen Lawrence inquiry) and Justifying War (the Hutton Inquiry into the Iraq war).
Booking: For further information and to book a ticket, please see the event webpage.
Source: Drama Centre / Central Saint Martins