Grenfell: Dictating to the Estate
Reading and discussion of a documentary play exploring the events that led to the Grenfell Tower Fire
Nathaniel McBride
Talk
FRI 14 June 2019 / 7 - 8.30pm
FREE
Basement Lecture Theatre, Adam House, 3 Chambers Street
Edinburgh EH1 1HR
Fully accessible / Lift access / Accessible WC / Children welcome
Dictating to the Estate is a play about the refurbishment of Grenfell Tower made entirely from contemporary documents such as emails, blogs and council minutes. The play places the refurbishment of the tower in the context of austerity and estate regeneration, and re-enacts the efforts of local housing activists such as the Grenfell Action Group to resist these policies and ensure the improvement works to the Tower were safely carried out. The story ends six months before the fire, with Grenfell Action Group’s chillingly prescient observation that only a “major catastrophe … with serious loss of life” would bring their landlords to account. It was first performed at the Playground Theatre January 2019. For this Architecture Fringe event playwright Nathaniel McBride offers a reading from the play, describes the process of researching and writing it, and reflects on documentary theatre as a possible mode of political education.
