The last week has epitomised for me the highs and lows of modern-day life. Last Friday we buried my uncle (my mum’s brother) who had in some ways been a bit of a father figure to me. It was great to see so many of my extended family at the event travelling as they did from across the UK, Europe and beyond to the funeral but sad of course that my uncle wasn’t there and that I was able to spend so little time with each of them – and that it took a funeral for us to meet up.
It came at the end of the first week in which I was performing in a new play, Animal Farm, The Sequel by Talkin Turkey Theatre Company – which has sold out all 10 performances at the Wimbledon Studio Theatre. My usual focus dipped a little that Friday night, understandably perhaps, but recovered on Saturday and since – the initial run finishes on 9 November. The show has received very good feedback and may well go on to perform elsewhere.
We had a day off on Sunday when my attention naturally once again fell on the football field and AFC Wimbledon’s FA Cup match at Milton Keynes which our local team won quite comfortably 2-0. Anyone who has read this column regularly knows how passionately I feel about the way the original club was ripped from our community, so it was a particularly pleasing result given the effort we have all put into resurrecting a fan owned, Wimbledon based football team.
Then back at the theatre this week the focus of our play took a sharp turn back to reality with the result of the US Election on Wednesday morning. For those of you not familiar with the original book of Animal Farm by George Orwell written in 1945, it imagined a farm being taken over by its resident animal population, finishing ominously with the pigs effectively adopting the role of the humans – a reflection at the time of Orwell’s views on the Russian revolution.
Ana Gonzalez’ thought provoking and engaging script for ‘The Sequel’ takes the story forward three generations to the current day and deals headlong with a variety of current issues, the environment, immigration, racism, bullying, addiction, economic manipulation, food and water shortages and fascist, war-mongering politicians. A new generation of pigs are still in charge (I play one of them) but there is unrest among the animal populace as things unravel.
I have set out before that our charity is a non-political organisation. Notwithstanding the fact that one of our founders, Sir Cyril Black had quite extreme views on a variety of issues as a politician, we as trustees, have steadfastly sought to keep the charity non-partisan on political issues domestically despite, of course, having our own individual views.
However, I can’t let the re-election of Trump to the Whitehouse go without comment this time, particularly given its relevance to our play. To me Trump is a monster. He is the direct opposite of what I consider to be a good human being. The good grace with which his opponent (Kamala Harris) has accepted defeat stands in stark contrast to Trump’s reaction last time. But clearly the majority of the US electorate, for whatever reason, disagree with my assessment.
Democracy is a strange beast. It is one of the few areas where all eligible voting people are treated equally, at least in principle. I’ve said in a previous blog that it also contains within it the very elements of its own limitations. Defining the electoral populace by geographic boundaries brings with it the threat, as we have seen time and time again in history, of rampant nationalism.
Some unscrupulous, clever politicians play to our worst fears of the aliens outside and within and use that to feed their own agenda. I still believe that ideally, the way to connect, is by being more open not divisive. It is something I plan to focus on even more vigorously in future. I have been fortunate to be able to use theatre and this space to start that, but it will not end there.