Locked In 2008 Press
• Western Morning News (preview) • The Herald, Plymouth • Western Morning News (review)

               

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Preview feature
Western Morning News
Roger Malone
Friday 26 September 2008

Listening to pirate radio while crisscrossing London provided the inspiration for multi-award-winning writer Fin Kennedy's play Locked In.

A hard-hitting three-hander, the plot revolves around a Caribbean MC and Bengali DJ ripping up the airwaves from the 20th floor of an abandoned East End tower block.

The play was first produced by Half Moon Young People's Theatre in 2006, and a revival brings it to the Drum Theatre, Plymouth, as part of a national tour.

Dashing between meetings, with a mobile phone complete with built-in radio for company, Fin, pictured top , began tuning in to the capital's 80 pirate radio stations – and became fascinated.

“They get bad press because people think they are to do with gangs and drugs,” he says.

“And while there is an element of that, what interested me wasn't the late-night broadcasts, which can be quite aggressive. It was the late-morning and mid-afternoon where they have this expanse of time where people can do their thing. They have phone-ins covering everything from plastic surgery to gun crime.”

As air space, carved out to give the people and their music a voice, the stations also provide a showcase for what they can do, as well as dealing with what is going on in their lives.

Crafting a play out of this territory was a dramatic challenge for Fin, who feels it is important to explore the areas of society often sidelined by mainstream interests.

“It was a whole sub-culture I had to get to grips with, and a whole dialogue,” says the 31-year-old.

To ensure authenticity he recorded and transposed conversations word for word to get the dialogue and cadences right.

“I have updated the slang for the revival because slang changes so fast. A 2006 production would sound outdated to kids today who know their stuff.”

As well as writing, Fin also works with youngsters – most famously at the Mulberry School, getting them involved in theatre. Working in east London, often with ethnic minorities, is mutually beneficial.

“Here is a huge source of untapped stories,” he says. “As a writer a lot of stuff has been done and you have to seek new experiences. There are a lot of marginalised communities in this country and it is about giving them a voice.”

His plays about youth are also aimed at drawing them to the theatre, and encouraging them to enjoy the experience.

“Teenage audiences are the most unforgiving and will make it audibly known if they are bored – you have to be on the ball all the time.”

Fin is attracted to areas where there is a melting pot of ethnic communities and religious communities existing together. Drama is about struggle, he says. Characters that come out of poor backgrounds will struggle more than many. “They are also under-represented. When I go to the theatre I want to see something new about the place I live.”

This he strives to capture in his own work, and says that when it works the sense of satisfaction is great.

“It is a great privilege to be paid for doing something that you love and make a living from it.”

While he can teach the process of writing plays, success is ultimately down to the effort and ability of the student.

“You have to develop an ear for dialogue. Some people can pick it up better than others. You cannot teach that.”

When Locked In was first produced, with its authentic language of cross-cultural, inner city life, underscored by contemporary hip-hop soundtrack, Fin says there was an “amazing reaction” from young audiences.

“I was very nervous about sounding like a sad old uncle getting down with the kids. They expected me to be black or Asian.

“But the page is a great leveller. I'm just a name on the flyer and they judge the work on its merit. You don't have to be a 16-year-old black MC from east London to write it!”

He believes there is a responsibility when writing for a subsidised theatre to provide something that speaks about the world around us and not something self-indulgent.

“Some writers write a play about themselves. I have had a very uneventful life and if I drew on that I'd have a very boring play.”

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Review
The Herald
Bill Stone
10 October 2008

The energy crackling off the stage during Locked In is enough to power a small town. After the sixty five minute performance the players' batteries must be drained.

Certainly the atmosphere is electric. Not surprising, perhaps, since the play itself was developed by award winning writer Fin Kennedy in collaboration with young people.

The intention was to ensure that the cross-cultural inner-city life it depicts is rendered in authentic language. It is underscored by a contemporary soundtrack by international music artist DJ Billy Biznizz.

The location for the narrative is the twentieth floor of an abandoned East End tower block where Blaze, the Caribbean MC, and Riqi, the  Muslim DJ, are the stars of a local pirate radio station.

Everything is fine until along comes Zahida - a disruptive girl who can match them at  their tasks, but whose special skill is as photographer.

Then outside pressures intervene. Blaze has to do a favour for a local gangster, which entails hiding a revolver and drugs in the studio.

There follow increasingly heated discussions about their comparative religions and gun crime, which become acrimonious and, worryingly, inadvertently broadcast, so that they try to defuse the situation by substituting the name Twix for the revolver. Finally they are raided by the police.

The show demonstrates that religious and ethnic differences need be no barrier to mutual understanding.

The dialogue is mostly rapped. It  must be a generational thing as I actually caught only about one word in ten, but this proved no barrier to my enjoyment of the production, which also included integrated synchronised movement and dance of the kind to which Frantic Assembly have accustomed us.

And it would be hard to better the three actors – Lee Hardy as Tariq, initially known  as Riqi, Ashley J as Blaze, and Ambur Khan as Zahida.

Constantly riveting, this is an exciting example of a contemporary show essentially designed for young persons.

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Review
Westen Morning News
Karen Bussell
13 October 2008