Samuel Jones
Researcher
Samuel Jones is a researcher at Demos. His research interests include culture and the arts, museums and galleries, creativity and the communication of ideas and knowledge through the cultural sector. In particular, he is interested in cross-cultural communications and the role of culture in international relations. In other work, he has focused on Global English and conversations. Recently, he has undertaken research in both the US and China.
at 1:25pm
on Tuesday, 8th January 2008
Kwame Kwei-Armah's Statement of Regret, currently playing at the National Theatre, is set in a think tank called the Institute of Black Policy Research (ibpr). The play takes its title from the demands made of the British and other governments to issue a 'statement of regret' for their respective nation's involvement in the slave trade.
Some of us went to see it last night and thought that - if people haven't already come across it - it was worth drawing to their attention.
Briefly outlined, the think tank's founder, Kwaku Mackenzie, is played by Don Warrington and is a model of political collapse. Once a luminary thinker, we see him as his powers fade, his insight dulls and he yearns for the glory of the front page. Grieving the death of a father whose memory and heritage he feels he has betrayed, he drinks his way to ideas and, guilt-driven, looks to those of his father's past to find a way out of the problems of his present. We see Kwaku revert to his father's politics, publicly championing division within the Black community in a way that leads ultimately to accusations of racism, a painful irony since that is exactly what Kwaku has spent his life fighting. The result is financial ruin and a crisis in his leadership, made public through a disastrously drunken interview on the TV news - which, as one member of the think tank says 'is gonna be on Youtube before the day is out'.
Amidst this, Kwaku introduces a new member to his team, Adrian, a young intern, whose veneer of pomp is admirably charcterised by Clifford Samuel. Adrian's more reactionary ideas ruffle the feathers of Kawaku's long term associate, Michael (Colin McFarlane), and the razor-sharp young policy wonk, Idrissa, played with due prickliness and fight by Chu Omambala. More than that, when it emerges that Adrian is also Kwaku's illegitimate son, his wife and existing son aren't that pleased either.
Kwei-Armah's play is less about both politics and the struggle of various characters to find personal senses of identity. We see the decline of a great mind, publicly ploughing a furrow long since infertile and from which the younger members of his team yearn to escape. At the same time, we see a family implode and personal and private senses of identity disrupted and brought into collision.
Statement of Regret is a powerful play. After ratcheting the tensions of one man's mind, Kwei-Armah allows them to spin free with the result that the dogma of tradition and contemporary politics flap loosely and unconnected, drawing all around them into a state of confusion. It deals with the difficulty of encounters: the past with the present, the private with the public, tradition with change, community with community, pragmatism with belief. Kwei-Armah captures the unharmonious marriage of the purely personal and the purely political well. It's not exactly a true facsimile of a day in the life in a think tank, but an admirably challenging and rewarding play.
Statement of Regret runs at the National Theatre until 6 February
For Michael Billington's review in the The Guardian, see here.
Some of us went to see it last night and thought that - if people haven't already come across it - it was worth drawing to their attention.
Briefly outlined, the think tank's founder, Kwaku Mackenzie, is played by Don Warrington and is a model of political collapse. Once a luminary thinker, we see him as his powers fade, his insight dulls and he yearns for the glory of the front page. Grieving the death of a father whose memory and heritage he feels he has betrayed, he drinks his way to ideas and, guilt-driven, looks to those of his father's past to find a way out of the problems of his present. We see Kwaku revert to his father's politics, publicly championing division within the Black community in a way that leads ultimately to accusations of racism, a painful irony since that is exactly what Kwaku has spent his life fighting. The result is financial ruin and a crisis in his leadership, made public through a disastrously drunken interview on the TV news - which, as one member of the think tank says 'is gonna be on Youtube before the day is out'.
Amidst this, Kwaku introduces a new member to his team, Adrian, a young intern, whose veneer of pomp is admirably charcterised by Clifford Samuel. Adrian's more reactionary ideas ruffle the feathers of Kawaku's long term associate, Michael (Colin McFarlane), and the razor-sharp young policy wonk, Idrissa, played with due prickliness and fight by Chu Omambala. More than that, when it emerges that Adrian is also Kwaku's illegitimate son, his wife and existing son aren't that pleased either.
Kwei-Armah's play is less about both politics and the struggle of various characters to find personal senses of identity. We see the decline of a great mind, publicly ploughing a furrow long since infertile and from which the younger members of his team yearn to escape. At the same time, we see a family implode and personal and private senses of identity disrupted and brought into collision.
Statement of Regret is a powerful play. After ratcheting the tensions of one man's mind, Kwei-Armah allows them to spin free with the result that the dogma of tradition and contemporary politics flap loosely and unconnected, drawing all around them into a state of confusion. It deals with the difficulty of encounters: the past with the present, the private with the public, tradition with change, community with community, pragmatism with belief. Kwei-Armah captures the unharmonious marriage of the purely personal and the purely political well. It's not exactly a true facsimile of a day in the life in a think tank, but an admirably challenging and rewarding play.
Statement of Regret runs at the National Theatre until 6 February
For Michael Billington's review in the The Guardian, see here.
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