A Day at the Racists - Finborough Theatre
Preview by Lizzie Guilfoyle
ANDERS Lustgarten’s new play A Day at the Racists, a ‘devastatingly timely examination of the rise of the BNP in London’, receives its world premiere at Finborough Theatre where it runs from March 4 (previews from March 2) to March 27, 2010.
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 Barking constituency that BNP leader Nick Griffin is to stand for in the forthcoming General Election, A Day at the Racists is described as a uniquely brave and perceptive piece of political theatre that not only attempts to understand why people might be drawn to the BNP but also diagnoses the deeper cause of that attraction – the political abandonment and betrayal of the working class by New Labour.
Anders Lustgarten is Pearson Playwright-in-Residence at the Finborough Theatre, where his first two plays – The Insurgents (2007), a comic drama about Kurdish immigration and political resistance to globalisation, and Enduring Freedom (2008), a powerful portrayal of the Bush years – were produced. In 2009, Torture Comedy, a satire on rendition and the War on Terror, was part of Vibrant! – A Festival of Finborough Playwrights.
His other works include You Cannot Escape Our Love, The Punishment Stories and an adaptation of Slawomir Mrozek’s The Police.
Presented by Rogue State Theatre Company in association with Neil McPherson for the Finborough Theatre, A Day at the Racists is directed by Ryan McBryde.
For more information call the box office on 0844 847 1652 or visit www.finboroughtheatre.co.uk
Prior to A Day at the Racists, The Early Bird runs at Finborough Theatre from February 2 to February 27, 2010.
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