Little Revolution

A posh, pretty, blonde young woman in skinny jeans and a green T-shirt waves her arms and introduces herself as Alecky Blythe to a group of people, all ages and colours, sitting on benches. The actress Imogen Stubbs is among them, clad in ethnic prints, a shocking-pink rose behind her ear.

The theatre, arranged in the round, resembles a community hall. Alecky explains that she is here to interview ‘real’ people for parts in the ‘community chorus’ alongside professional actors in her play, Little Revolution. The piece, she says, is ‘verbatim theatre’, entirely composed of edited interviews with ‘real’ people in Hackney during the riots in 2011 when London was burning, sparked by the police shooting of Mark Duggan. And she is playing herself – indeed, cheerfully and hilariously sending herself up with her wonderful braying, nervous laugh and inappropriate comments about it being ‘pretty exciting’ when a cavalry of mounted police gallop into action. Oh, and in order for everyone to sound exactly as they should, complete with all ums, ers and idiocies, they will have the original recordings coming direct to their earpieces.

This is the only odd decision in Joe Hill-Gibbins’s otherwise superbly judged and vibrant production. Paradoxically, the earpieces and wires make it less authentic rather than more so.

Never mind, such is the energy of the piece that one is quickly immersed in the characters, strangers united for the first time, all genuinely wired by the drama on their doorstep. There’s the lovely old local councillor, the earnest Radio 4 presenter, Stubbs’s hippy and her artdirector husband eager to get involved, Ronni Ancona’s Jane who has set up a website for people to donate to Siva, whose shop, where they all buy their milk, has been burnt down. We hear little from the rioters and looters, less keen to be interviewed. Or the police.

The piece becomes a fascinating and explosive exploration of the tensions and an exhilarating celebration of the rich sound – and fury – of language in a multicultural city. But the final scene, on the day the jurors announce their conclusion on Mark Duggan’s killing, is dispiriting: Blythe returns to interview Colin, a black barber who had been memorably sceptical about M&S laying on a tea party for the locals. ‘They need a youth centre,’ he’d said. The killing was ‘lawful’ says the newsreader. ‘It was always going to be that decision,’ says Colin. ‘There’s got to be a better way instead of rioting to handle them like that, innit?’ And carries on clipping. Here, a punctured Blythe switches off. Apathy rules.

Until 4 October at the Almeida Theatre, London N1: 020-7359 4404, www.almeida.co.uk