Theatre director Nicolas Kent has announced he will be directing a new verbatim play about the Grenfell Tower Inquiry.
Titled Grenfell: Value Engineering – Scenes from the Inquiry, the play is “based entirely on the words of those involved in the current Grenfell Tower Inquiry”. It will look at testimonies from the public inquiry into the June 2017 fire that killed 72 people.
The production will be produced by Nick of Time Productions in association with The Playground Theatre.
Journalist Richard Norton-Taylor is the play’s editor. He has previously worked with Kent on similar verbatim projects such as Bloody Sunday and Nuremberg.
“The inquiry is about much more than what happened on the night of that fire,” Norton-Taylor told the Guardian. “It is a powerful allegory, really. What is being exposed is how companies and local authorities passed the buck…incompetence, secrecy, cost-cutting, the consequences of government austerity policies, the cozy and unaccountable networks of people who knew each other.”
The fire provoked mass outrage after a police investigation revealed the building’s cladding to be a potent flammable.
The verbatim performance will initially take place at the Tabernacle in Notting Hill from 13 October to 13 November. It will then move to Birmingham Rep from 16-20 November.
The production is non-profit, with Kent allowing locals who live near the tower to watch the show for “less than the price of a newspaper.”
Words by Amelia Hansford
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Image Credit: “Grenfell Tower” by ChiralJon is licensed under CC BY 2.0