Anyone who has ever tried to follow a public inquiry via a rolling news service will know that, for the most part, it is deeply boring. Most of what is covered is neither new, pertinent nor interesting. Thankfully Gillian Slovo’s “verbatim” inquiry drama, The Riots, which in the absence of anything more official is the closest we are likely to get to a public inquiry into the five days in August which shook Britain’s cities, asks the questions to which we all want answers, while skimming over the administrative nitty-gritty.
The first of those questions, “What actually happened?”, is answered by
the numerous testimonies Slovo has painstakingly collected from police, the rioters and their victims. A big screen helpfully maps the movement of the rioters and the police in “real” time. The second question, “Why?” is considerably more difficult to answer. The evidence is presented here by a variety of voices.
We hear first from Chief Inspector Graham Dean, who was called away from cutting his parents’ hedge to take operational control as Tottenham went up in flames. It is largely down to the brilliance of actor Tim Woodward that you at once feel sympathy for him. We hear from an unnamed rioter, overlooked by police surveillance officers because he was wearing sandals – “It was like carnival, but without the aggression”– and from a man whose home above Carpet Right was razed to the ground by arsonists. An officer confides: “We’ve lost Clapham as rioting spreads to Birmingham, Bristol and Manchester. At one point, the Tricyle stage itself bursts into flames.
The second act attempts to answer the second question. Why did the riots happen? While Labour’s Diane Abbott insists that we are witnessing “a classic 1980s race riot”, others, such as Tory Education Secretary Michael Gove, put the rioting down to “a vicious lawless and immoral minority”. In this superbly even-handed account, it is left to the audience to decide who is right.
In one hilarious moment, which encapsulates the economy of the Tricyle’s excellent production, Abbott (Dona Croll) spins around in her chair and re-emerges as Camila Batmanghelidjh. Another Labour politician, John McDonnell, point outs that we have become “a nation of looters”. MPs, bankers and corporations have, he says, led by example.
During the intermission, I overheard a group of drama students arguing outside about whether The Riots actually constituted proper theatre. The very fact their argument became so heated is testament to theatres in general and, in particular, this theatre’s, ability to provoke discomfort and debate through searing questioning.
The same young people could learn much about their chosen trade from the example of the excellent cast directed by Nicholas Kent, in particular Cyril Nri as a pastor/black police officer and Steve Toussaint as a race-relations consultant. Given the short time elapsed since the events it depicts took place, The Riots is a staggering achievement. Throughout the play, witnesses were asked to sum up the riots in three words. “Confused” and “criminal” were cited often, but so were “frustrated”, “angry” and “British”. You decide.
