Social Housing in Performance: The English Council Estate on and off Stage (Methuen Drama Engage Book 4)

"This book explores the ways that council estates have been represented in England across a range of performance forms. Drawing on examples from mainstream, site-specific and resident-led performance works, it considers the political potential of contemporary performance practices concerned with the council estate. Depictions of the council estate are brought into dialogue with global representations of what Chris Richardson and Hans Skott-Myhre call the 'hood', to tease out the specific features of the British context and situate the work globally. Katie Beswick's study provides a timely contribution to the ongoing national and global interest in social housing. As the housing market grows ever more insecure, and estates are charged with political rhetoric, theatre and socially engaged art set or taking place on estates takes on a new potency. Mainstream theatre works examined include Rita, Sue and Bob Too and A State Affair at the Soho Theatre, Port at the National Theatre, and DenMarked at the Battersea Arts Centre. The book also explores the National Youth Theatre's Slick and Roger Hiorns' Seizure, as well as community-based and resident led performances by Fourthland, Jordan McKenzie, Fugitive Images and Jane English"-- Provided by publisher Cover Half title Series page Title Copyrights Dedication Contents Acknowledgements Three places: A preface Introduction: The council estate, definitions and parameters The council estate and the crisis of social housing Council estate performance: A taxonomy Why spatiality? Methodology and theoretical frameworks 1 Quotidian performance of the council estate Karen Matthews: Deviant motherhood on the white working-class estate Cheryl Cole: Working-class pride, escape from the estate and middle-class identity making Mark Duggan: Race, black masculinity and resistance on the council estate as hood The role of artistic performance practice? 2 Class and the council estate in mainstream theatre Rita, Sue and Bob Too/A State Affair: Andrea Dunbar and the ‘authentic voice’ Port : Working-class exceptionality and the estate as ruin DenMarked: Beyond realism – hip-hop, the hood and council estate rage Dominant, residual emergent 3 Located on the estate SLICK: Art and redevelopment, making sense of unresolved tensions Seizure: The generic estate, empty buildings and timeless beauty ‘The Wedding to the Bread’: Tricky politics, resident engagement and inauthentic ritual Critical ambivalence 4 Resident artists Jordan McKenzie’s Monsieur Poo-Pourri films: Subversive humour, art theory and the politics of the everyday Fugitive Images’ Estate: A Reverie: Home unmaking, gentrification and yearning on an east London council estate Jane English’s 20b: Demolished estates, domicide and revenge nostalgia Institutions, the Arts Council and the impossibility of ‘grass-roots’ Conclusion: Three thoughts Notes References Index