RIOT By Lydia Marchant This play was commissioned as part of TEN and first performed in March 2019 by 55 members of Hull Truck Theatre’s Young Company. TEN featured 10 ten-minute plays, each based on a year in the decade since Hull Truck Theatre moved in to its Ferensway home. This play was inspired by the riots since across the UK during summer 2011. Plot This play imagines a fictional riot in Hull in 2011, offers insight into the many reasons that young people may feel disenfranchised and why some felt the need to lash out. Notes: Recommended for 14+. This play contains some mild swearing with the references to anti-social behavior such as rioting, vandalism and underaged drinking. This play was written for a group of young people to perform as an ensemble which means that they take a shared responsibility for telling story rather than playing individual characters. However, if there is a character name in bold on the left then the dialogue on the right should be spoken by that character. A straight black horizontal line may represent a change in topic, location or lapse in time. About the playwright: Lydia Marchant wrote her first play for Hull Truck Theatre’s Young Writers Festival when she was 13. She was Young Writer in Residence between 2012 and 2015 and is now an Affiliate Artist. Her work for Hull Truck Theatre includes THE EXPENDABLES (2012), SPLIT (2015), DEFIANCE (2017), LEFTOVERS (2018), TEN PLAYS (2019) and MUMSY (2019). Lydia is part of the BBC’s Writers Academy, led by John Yorke, for which she is writing episodes of EASTENDERS, CASUALTY and HOLBY CITY. She also has work in development with Cuba Pictures and BBC Factual. She is Associate Writer of The Roaring Girls, with whom she developed BEACH BODY READY, and has also worked with companies including Middle Child, Silent Uproar, York Theatre Royal, Derby Theatre and Paines Plough. She has a Distinction in MA Writing for Stage and Broadcast Media from the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, and trained on writers programmes including Writing Squad, Leeds Playhouse, National Theatre, Soho Theatre, Royal Court and BFI.
1
2011 RIOT Katie PCSO Joe Brad Isabella - - Ensemble - Picture running through the streets of Hull. - Sweat matts your hair. - You taste salt when you open your mouth. - Prinny Quay’s had its teeth kicked in. - Shoulders smash up security grills. Naked shelves. Plugs pulled out. - Crunching glass and coat hangers under your feet. - A mannequin’s grinning head gets chucked from River Island. Explodes across the ground floor. - (Topshop next, yeah?) - (Oh my God yeah! GAME!) - (Sports Direct!) - (TK Maxx!) - (Dorothy Perkins?) - (Nah, you’re alright.) - You follow the crowd. - It’s like- harmony. Or something. - A sick kinda street party. - Every floor rings with laughter and burglar alarms. - (Get in!) - Sirens. Like Christmas Lights. 2
- Police lines bend under riot shields. Screaming for back-up that doesn’t come. - (Boshing em, aren’t we?) - Better than half 7 in the knock-off aisle, this. Black Friday on steroids. - White iPhones lights. The world watches you through camera phones. - Picture one sickening second. The shouting cuts. - You look out. - You see your city on fire. —————— - Katie and her mates are in the Mosh Pit. Top of Whitefriargate. - The Old City Walls. Where one time Hull turned away the King. - Their little corner. Just in but then outta view of the rest of the city. - Her lot’ve been here all summer. Kids from all over. Kelvin, Trinity, Holderness, Mally, Hessle, Cott. Cracked blue / black nail varnish. Septums pierced. Hair dipdyed. - Jumping skateboards off the ancient bricks. Play tinny Slaves off someone’s Spotify. Having proper fired-up conversations. Not needing to overthink before they open their mouths. - Only today, couple of metres off, there’s this policeman. Well, not a proper policeman. PCSO. You know, the free ones? Stood in the heat of the day. All decked out in thick black trousers / long sleeves / bright yellow bib. Getting redder and redder and redder. Katie pictures him reaching boiling point. Frothing up blood like an overfilled kettle. - In the end, it’s a look that does it. If that old lady hadn’t given them that look, this whole mess wouldn’t of happened. They was only being a bit loud. Just mates having a laugh. Pushing each other into the bins. Not a crime that, is it? Messing about. This old cow walks past, eyeballs the PCSO. And he doesn’t need asking twice. Nah, he’s got an audience, now this is His Moment. - Starts striding over. Calling them ‘guys.’ PCSO:
Come on guys. Time to move along.
Katie:
Move along? 3
- Katie’s whole body’s clenching. She keeps her eyes on her phone. - His lardy face’s dripping over her now. PCSO:
You lot
- Heat of his sour breath. PCSO:
Shift.
Katie:
‘Shift!?’ Where d’ya want us to ‘shift’ to?
- ‘Been here all summer.’ - ‘Only place you lot let us go is here.’ - ‘Want us to jump in the docks, do ya?’ - ‘Go on mate - where we supposed to go? —————— - Joe’s stood at the bus stop in his Tesco garb. What a crappy day. He’s grinding his teeth, shoulders taut. Scrabbled together a £3.30 adult fare home. Squishing it so hard, it cuts into his palms. - He’s staring in the window of Bright House. 55 inch Sony Smart TV. Ultra HD. Proper beautiful. - Imagine having one of them, all to yourself. - He pictures kicking chunks out the shop window with his fists and his feet. Going on in there. Alarms bawling, whatever. Hauling the telly up on his shoulders. And just effing taking it. - I mean, int like he’d actually do it. Is it? God, Joe still wakes up at night thinking bout that Curly Curly he swiped from Beale’s. And that was in Year 3. - But there again, why shunt he? - Why shunt he have that TV? - Cause actually, he deserves it. Dunt he? - Deserves it cause of Brenda. Joe:
Ugh Brenda. 4
- Cause Joe hates Brenda, yeah? Hates her so much he’s got a list. Calls it ‘Things I Hate About Brenda.' 1) They’re paired up for the replen on a morning, right? Global Foods. And she’ll be putting her stock out in slow motion. Rate of 6 chicken tikka’s a minute, he swears down. Banging on about booking Fuerteventura for Christmas and her new Fiat 500. Like he actually cares. All the while he’s working at 1.5 pace just to keep them on target. 2) Tesco policy, company policy, is shortest dates to the front, yeah? But does Brenda care about that? No chance. Last Tuesday Joe caught her stuffing a 4th of September in front of an August 10th. And the thing is, if the auditors came in and saw that, they’d both be out on their arses. 3) Brenda does this thing, whenever she gets bored. Which is like 20 minutes into a shift. Where she’ll pick up a wad of cloths and walk up and down the shop floor all brisk like she’s sorting out a major spillage when there int one. Just so no customers ask her any questions. 4) But the main thing. The thing Joe hates the most about Brenda is -while he’s unpacking in double-quick time / taking out-of-date stock off her shelves / delivering what can only be described as exceptional customer service- she’s on £6.08 an hour and, at 17, he’s taking home £3.68. For doing exactly the same job. Better. - Why shouldn’t he do it? - Maybe he should do it. - Yeah, yeah. Maybe. - Cross the road at the next Green Man, go over, and just… Do it. - And (like most things) it’ll be all Brenda’s fault. —————— - In M&S, Brad’s staring at a shelf of ‘lime n' basil room diffusers’ while the Manager gives him The Spiel: - ‘Currently no vacancies, unfortunately.’ - ‘We’ll keep hold of your CV.’ - ‘Keep you on file. In case anything suitable comes up’ - But Brad can tell by her monotone, he won’t be getting a call back.
5
- See, Brad fills his days trawling ‘Indeed.’ Moving the ‘distance’ bar out further and further. 10 miles. 30. Screw it, 75. - Writing whole paragraphs on his ‘passion for customer care.’ Making out he’s wanted to work Yates since he was 9. - Refreshing his emails 30 times a day. Scanning for the word ‘unfortunately.’ (It’s always in the third paragraph) - Getting told again and again he dunt have the ‘retail experience’ to get ‘retail experience.’ - Sending out the next lotta CVs. Bigging himself up more n’ more. Believing it less n’ less. - Who even buys a ‘room diffuser?’ Brad pictures taking a swipe at the shelf with his forearm. Crunching glass into the floor ’til the perfume burns his eyes. - Most days he rolls outta bed at 2pm. Hant got owt to wake up for. Cept on Wednesdays when he volunteers at Help the Aged. - Even then he int allowed on the till - ‘case he nicks stuff. He’s just in the back. 6 hours in the back neatly folding and folding the clothes of dead people thinking Brad:
One day I’m gonna be dead.
- At the door Brad spots a stack of M&S ‘roll-neck jumpers.' - Immaculately colour-coded. Ruler-straight folds. - How good would it feel, to rough ‘em all up? - Deep breath. - Knocks the whole lot down with the flat of his hand as his passes. - Flung across the floor. French Navy over Marl Grey over Azure Blue over Ochre over Dark Marine over Mauve. - Brad feels his heart knock against his ribs. Brad:
I’m still alive.
- He thinks. —————— Isabella:
Get off me. Don’t touch me. I’m going. I’m going. Perv.
6
- The Security Guard escorts Isabella off the premises. Hands her back her V3 Yamaha Violin. Automatic doors click shut behind her. - She wonders if she’s this first person ever to be thrown out of the Albemarle Music Centre. Isabella:
I think…
- Isabella’s thoughts are all slurred. She’s dry-heaving on the pavement. Swallowing acid. Isabella:
That might mean I’ve blown Grade 5.
- 16 months’ practising. - 16 months. Arpeggios on repeat in her head. - Bach. Ives. Shostakovich. - Bach. Ives. Shostakovich. - Bach. Ives. Shostakovich. - Bach. Ives… 16 months. - The belt around her lungs tightens again ’til breathing hurts. - She’s seeing lights in front of her eyes. - She can’t fail it. - That wasn’t…. There isn’t time to fail it. - She doesn’t have time. - Isabella takes another mouth of vodka from her Vitamin Water bottle. Breathes deep. - Because she needs that Grade 5. They won’t let her audition for Youth Symphony Orchestra without Grade 5. - And she’ll never get into Uni if she’s not in Youth Symphony Orchestra because she won’t be a ‘Well Rounded Individual.’ - And if she doesn’t get into Uni she’ll never get a proper job. Spend her life asking, ‘would you like fries with that?’ - Her whole life’s a UCAS form she’s 3 years off writing. While the 4-o-clock-on-aMonday-morning voices in her head tells her, maybe she’s not a ‘Well Rounded Individual.’
7
- Bach. Ives. Shostakovich. - Another mouthful. - No, no. She has to take her Grade 5 today. They can’t stop her. She just has to. - Isabella keeps drinking ’til her hands are numb and her skull aches and there’s vomit in the bottom of her throat. - Then she picks up her V3 Yamaha Violin. Swings it above her head. Prepares to bring it down on the automatic doors of the Albemarle Music Centre. —————— - In the Mosh Pit, Katie’s staring this PCSO square in the eye. - Cause suddenly right in front of her, his face… - His face is every shopkeeper that follows her round. Breathes in sharp when she goes to pick summat up. The ones she jiggles the change in her pockets for. To show ‘em she’s got a right to be there. - And it’s Mr Ball watching her wipe off her black lipstick and smokey eye. ‘You know you’re a pretty girl without all that slap.’ - The taxi driver warning, ‘never get a bloke with all that metal in your face.’ - Mum’s boyfriend sneering ‘you’re turning into a Big Girl.’ - Greasy politicians she couldn’t even vote for. Tearing up her future before she’s even got started. - Katie can’t remember picking up the brick. Come loose from the old city walls. Walls that one time kept out the King. But minute she sees it miss his smug red face. Explode through the window of H Samuel. She knows it came from her. —————— - Picture running through the streets of the city. - Hearing your breath like it’s coming out someone else’s lungs. - (Come on!) - (Mental, this!) - The electricity of bodies moving together. - In the euphoric terror you’re seeing the earth as it is. Total, complete clarity. - Cause they’ve been telling you, hant they? The push notifications and the politicians and the wanky posters on the classroom wall. They’ve been on at you to ‘be the change you want to see the world.’ 8
- Do more than fired-up Tweets and sticking coins in change buckets. - And yeah, maybe all this is messed up. But maybe the skeleton of this whole system is messed up and all. - Maybe it’s too late to fix things. - Smash it, steal it, gut it. Start again. - Maybe, maybe this is the start of something. - Just, something. - The shouting around you cuts for a second. - You look out. See your whole city on fire. - And you keep on running.
9