A Day At The Racists

Post-Show Discussions
The post-show discussions are free to all same-day ticket holders and take place after directly the 7.30pm performance.
Thursday 18 March (Anders Lustgarten with Patrick Neate, Karena Johnson, Dan Rebellato and Justin Baidoo)
Wednesday 24 March (Dan Rebellato with Margaret Hodge MP, Justin Baidoo, Anders Lustgarten)
Supported by THE ROYAL BOROUGH OF KENSINGTON AND CHELSEA

A Day at the Racists is a devastatingly timely examination of the rise of the BNP in London.

Pete Case used to be something – a leading Labour Party organiser in the local car factories. Now he struggles to get by as a decorator as immigrant workers undercut his best mate’s firm, his son Mark can’t get a job or onto the housing list and nobody, from his Labour MP to his granddaughter’s teacher, seems to care.

Then Pete finds unexpected hope: Gina is young, mixed race and standing for Parliament on a platform of helping the local community. She is standing for the British National Party.

As Pete’s rage and despair gradually overcome his longstanding loathing of the BNP, he is drawn into the world of Gina’s campaign and finds himself entangled in a nightmare of political machinations that pit his closest relationships – son, best mate, lover – against his longest-held beliefs and newfound aims.

Set in the very Barking constituency that BNP leader Nick Griffin is to stand for in the forthcoming General Election, A Day at the Racists is a uniquely brave and perceptive piece of political theatre that both attempts to understand why people might be drawn to the BNP and diagnoses the deeper cause of that attraction – the political abandonment and betrayal of the working class by New Labour.

Supporting the play, two hotly topical post-show discussions will take place on 18 and 24 March, probing issues raised by A Day at the Racists. Drawing on the play, each post-show discussion will explore the function of political art in the 21st Century, in relation to British identity, nationalism and working class voices, attempting to question the underlying social and cultural issues behind the rise of the BNP in London. The discussions will be chaired by playwright and lecturer Dan Rebellato and Anders Lustgarten, with panellists including Margaret Hodge MP, Andi Osho, Patrick Neate, Karena Johnson, Justin Baidoo and members of the cast.

Dan Rebellato is a playwright and Professor of Contemporary Theatre at Royal Holloway, University of London and has published a number of works on contemporary theatre and society including 1956 and All That and British Theatre since the Seventies: Playwriting, Art and Politics,Theatre & Globalization.
Margaret Hodge MP has been Labour MP for Barking since 2004 and is currently Minister of State for the Department of Culture, Media and Sport; Nick Griffin announced in November 2009 that he will be contesting her Barking seat in the General Election.
Patrick Neate is an award-winning writer, journalist and playwright, having written widely on culture seen from alternative perspectives.
Karena Johnson is Artistic Director of the Broadway Theatre Barking, having previously worked as Head of Programming at Oval House, where she was then Britain’s only black arts programmer and was nominated for the Carlton Multicultural Awards.
Justin Baidoo is an activist, and is a key member of the Hope Not Hate anti-racism campaign working in Barking and the South London Anti-Fascist Group.

In an unique and significant collaboration with the Broadway Theatre Barking, A Day at the Racists will transfer to the theatre for a one-off performance on Friday 16 April, as a core part of a festival of arts events coinciding with the run-up to the General Election, including a youth-led political debate by local young people entitled Silence is Not Golden and a concert organised by charity Love Music Hate Racism.