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It was the loud support of Russell Brand in 2015 that gave a national airing to the campaign group Focus E15 Mums – 29 single mothers who took on the housing crisis in their area of east London by protesting against the local council’s plans to ship them out of the area to make way for private housing. This verbatim play, a hit at Edinburgh last year, keeps their campaign alive by putting their own words on stage and offering a loud mix of recollection and continuing protest and anger, all in a space plastered with protest posters and banners.
The original Focus campaigners met while residents of Newham’s FocusE15 hostel for young homeless people in 2013, and some ended up occupying empty properties on the Carpenters Estate in Stratford in 2014 – securing commitments from the council in return for their leaving. That episode, alongside many others, is recalled by five actors from Lung theatre company, each of them playing various characters, although most of the focus is on three young women who became firm friends through being housed together and later protesting together.
On the night I saw ‘E15’, some of the real campaigners marched into the Battersea Arts Centre before the show, and you could hear them chanting from the back of the theatre. That’s what gives this production life: a sense that it’s part of an ongoing story and reflects genuine lives at stake. It’s a rousing celebration of the power of organising, even if it’s gently mocking of the jargon-heavy language of the ‘professional’ activists who helped the cause.
There’s a slight disconnect between these actors and their subjects – they never fully close the gap between life and art, and seeing them alongside the ‘real’ protesters only stresses the gap between theatre and real life, rather than helping to close it. Another quibble is that attempts to incorporate the actual making of the show into the story feel frustratingly half-cocked. Verbatim theatre can be so much more artful than this, but ‘E15’ can’t be faulted for sheer punch-the-air enthusiasm.