theatre

Mandy, played by Lindsey Coulson

Review: Blame

When I went to see Blame at York Theatre Royal, I knew the subject matter was not exactly jolly. I knew the chances of a happy ending where everyone has learnt a valuable lesson, and can look forward to a life enriched by their new found peace and personal growth, was probably not going to happen.

What I didn’t know was how utterly accurate and cruel the writing by Judith Jones and Beatrix Campbell was going to be.

I saw them at the performance and they looked very respectable. I know it is utterly wrong to judge people, but I have a suspicion they may have hugged a tree or two in their lives. I’m very confident they buy fair-trade and recycle a lot. These wonderful looking ladies, however, have broad-sided me.

I was spellbound by the writing, it was so realistic, it was terminally sad, it was metaphorically rabbit-punching me in the stomach. The reason I felt so transfixed and chilled was because it was so true… It was stirring up some ghosts for me.

The story is set in Hackney, London. It centres around Mandy (savagely played to perfection by Lindsey Coulson) and her daughter, Laikeisha, (heartbreakingly played by Callie Ward), but also features Mandy’s friends, Dwayne and Chantelle (played by Nicholas Beveney, and Katie Wimpenny), and Mandy’s brother Raymond and her ex, Denny (both played by Andrew Paul), and her friend Paula, (played by Sandra Yaw).

They live on an estate, and Mandy’s front door has been off its hinges for weeks, and the council couldn’t give a hoot.

Chantelle and Dwayne

The play centres around one night, Mandy’s birthday. Mandy is determined to have a good time and is not in the mood to play mummy to Laikeisha. Reading a bed-time story to Laikeisha, making her a warm milky drink, and tucking her safely in bed, is about as appealing to Mandy as having a tooth extracted without an injection. Mandy wants to get completely smashed, and Laikeisha can fend for herself, as usual.

It was mesmerising watching this play because I had a lot of empathy for the characters. I could feel the futility of the lives they struggled to lead. At the same time they made my top lip curl, I couldn’t help it, I tried putting my finger over my mouth , but then my eye started to twitch.

Mandy storms about her flat, hair scraped back in a scrunchie, fag waving in the air, shouting her mouth off in her grubby England shirt and tracksuit.

Dwayne rants about the police harassing him, keeps his scales to weigh his drugs in a Barbie bag, and looks downright menacing. He also wants respect.

Chantelle has chosen Dwayne to be her baby-father, she has her hair in a tight pony tail, a top that doesn’t quite cover her tummy, and lots and lots of gold jewellery. She wants respect and the £200 buggy from the Argos catalogue.

Raymond is quite nice but a bit dim, he loves Laikeisha though, and tries to give her some sense of stability. He also has anger issues (he whacked someone over the head with something he shouldn’t have, and went to jail for it).

Denny, Mandy’s ex, is evil and brooding, he also looks like an extra from The Godfather.

Paula is Mandy’s best friend, with painful secrets in her closet.

Laikeshia just wants to be anywhere but home. Even if getting to ‘anywhere’ means her safety is at risk.

You have probably put all the characters in a nice little pile, marked 'scum, dregs, and druggies' - which is handily next to the pile marked 'lazy, worthless scroungers and waste of tax payers money'. Would it make any difference if I told you they had become part of a permanent class of people with almost zero access to earning a legal living wage? Would you believe that a third of British children live in poverty, the highest rate in Europe? People like Mandy and Paula and innocent vulnerable children like Laikeshia.

Mandy talks with fond recollection of her time running a cleaning crew. She got up at the crack of dawn, and worked hard. She wasn’t always so scruffy and distasteful and full of hate.

I lived on the 10th floor of a tower block in East London for 8 years. I have been lucky enough to live in the beautiful city of York for 10 years, but I still have regular nightmares that I am back living on that council estate. These nightmares are regular and depress the hell out of me. In my dream I am usually sobbing that it is all a mistake, and I want my home in York back.

The suffocating isolation that I felt on a daily basis living 10 floors up in a dangerous and sometimes hostile environment has left its mark on me. I shared a chunk of my life with people like Mandy, I saw young girls like Chantelle have babies with men who treated them like they despised them. I would stand right in the corner of the lift, gingerly trying to miss the urine. I would stand on my balcony and hear people screaming at each other against a background of repetitive bass music. I know there were people with guns around me, and drugs, lots of drugs.

I suppose when you house hundreds and hundreds of people in little boxes on top each other, with only enough money to feed themselves worthless white bread, and re-formed, mechanically recovered meat products, with all the nutritional value of a bogey, they start not to care. 

Add to that almost no opportunity to build better lives for themselves, almost no way of escaping the clutch of poverty that has them in a strangle hold. Mix in society’s scorn and distaste of them and it makes sense that they don’t exactly feel like starting a good neighbourhood scheme. Helping to cultivate anything other than cannabis plants, like a sense of community, is probably pretty low on their to do list.

This cycle of poverty is getting handed down to generation after generation, and no-one has the courage to do anything about it.

Judith Jones and Beatrix Campbell have courage though. They have written something powerful and shocking. They know their stuff, the accuracy they have portrayed in Blame deserves a bravery award. That they have given this new under class a voice, deserves respect. They have mine, and then some.

Wendy Barton-O'Neill