{"id":1128,"date":"2024-04-24T10:55:28","date_gmt":"2024-04-24T09:55:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/oral-history\/?p=1128"},"modified":"2024-04-24T11:12:40","modified_gmt":"2024-04-24T10:12:40","slug":"live-theatre-fed-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/oral-history\/2024\/04\/24\/live-theatre-fed-up\/","title":{"rendered":"Live Theatre: Fed Up!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The Oral History Unit and Collective\u2019s Foodbank Histories<\/em> <\/a>and Mutual Aid Oral History<\/a> <\/em>projects address the social and historical justice issues of Food Poverty. The projects have reached completion, but the issues remain, and the interviews and findings continue to influence ongoing research, public awareness and engagement initiatives. Here Unit Associate Researcher, Silvie Fisch <\/a>reviews Live Youth Theatre<\/em>‘s<\/a> new production of Fed Up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Live Theatre<\/a><\/em> decided pre-pandemic to make food poverty a long-term focus for young people at their youth theatre. Interviews from both projects were used in the development of two shows and connected community outreach programmes, first in 2019, now once again in 2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The name remained the same: \u201cFed Up!\u201d Parts from the first show appear in the second, but Fed Up! 2<\/em> is much longer, 18 scenes in total, and even more passionate than its predecessor. It investigates how food poverty affects young people in the North East of England and beyond. As part of their research, the team listened to and discussed excerpts from the interviews we had conducted with Foodbank<\/em> and Mutual Aid<\/em> service users.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They took this research seriously and worked on the materials for several months, supported by Director Paul James, Assistant Director Lauren Hawkes and dramaturg Tracy Gillman. They knew the harsh realities people endure are very different to what they have so far experienced in their own young lives. Several scenes begin with \u201cOnce upon a time<\/em>\u2026\u201d, creating a distance between the actors and the narratives of reality they bring to the stage. But it was obvious and fascinating to see how listening to the narratives of lived experiences we recorded helped them understand what it\u2019s really like when you can\u2019t make ends meet and how it fuelled their anger against injustice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The result is a fast paced, nuanced rendering of people\u2019s feelings, thoughts and experiences into short scenes, bearing witness through storytelling of individual sufferings and within the overarching political framework.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Passionate, sometimes poetic monologues and dramatic dialogues reveal the consequences of low paid, precarious employment and an inadequate, punitive benefit system. \u201cAre you going to wait in the queue like you see them on the telly, like you\u2019ve seen in that film? Is that really us?<\/em>\u201d These \u2018family stories\u2019 are probably the most moving scenes in the show.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Production Photo by Von Fox Promotions<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Managing everyday living on tight budgets has become almost impossible, not just for the poorest families (who had an average income 59% below the poverty line in recent years!). In 2021\/22 two thirds of working-age adults in poverty lived in a household where someone was in work (Joseph Rowntree Foundation, UK Poverty 2024 Report<\/a><\/em>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

People don\u2019t expect luxuries, just the basic necessities. Enough money to put food on the table, pay the electric bill and buy new school shoes for their children. To emphasise this, we get to hear a collage of original audio from an interview with the single mother of toddler twins.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI worry that I\u2019m going to wake up and the electric is going to be off \u2026 I don\u2019t really like asking for help of foodbanks and things like that. I\u2019m thinking, maybe\u2019s if I just don\u2019t get that\u2026 you know, I\u2019ve put off getting me hair cut which only costs about nine pound \u2026 I can\u2019t afford a proper pair of boots\u2026 It\u2019s one thing for myself but to not be able to provide for your children that makes you feel like a failure. It does \u2026  Sometimes if they leave bits I\u2019ll pick at that, then I\u2019ll have some toast or a soup or a sandwich or something and that\u2019s it, it\u2019s whatever\u2019s there, whatever\u2019s left, if I like it or not, that\u2019s what it is\u2026 The kids have never gone without.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Young people carry the heaviest burden of the social and economic inequalities between communities. A staggering 47.5% of children in the Byker area of Newcastle were living in relative poverty in 2020\/2021(Newcastle upon Tyne City Profile<\/a><\/em>). And their prospects are grim. On average, children who receive free school meals are less than half as likely to receive five good GCSEs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The ridiculing portrayals of the \u201cself-serving, self-indulgent, self-righteous<\/em>\u201d politicians by the young actors are hilarious, but the message is clear: poverty is a political choice. And they refer to the damning remarks of Philip Alston and Olivier De Schutter, the UN\u2019s special rapporteurs on extreme poverty and human rights, who repeatedly accused the UK government of the systematic immiseration of a significant part of the British population (see for example the Report of the Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights<\/em> <\/a>2019).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cRemember the past? How we either learn from it or are forced to repeat it<\/em>.\u201d This most striking monologue, already a highlight of Fed Up! 1<\/em>, has particular resonances for a region which experienced unprecedented rise in poverty in the 1980s, leaving it with poverty levels that are still around 50% higher than they were in the 1970s. Generations of people grow up and live their lives severely disadvantaged. \u201cI was born a poor child and I will die a poor, old man<\/em>\u201d, says one of the characters, a quote taken from one of the interviews.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The show ends with one crucial question for the audience:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe are Fed up.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Are you?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cFed Up!\u201d on tour:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n