Demand The Bloggable by Clint Iguana
When was the first time you met an undercover cop? No, me neither. But that’s how it is supposed to be. They are trained to move among us, undetected, then move on, as if they were never there. But it doesn’t always go to plan.
I can recall the first time I met Anarcho-Marco. It was at a Reclaim the Streets event, an anti-capitalist demo in Cardiff, in 2005. Over the next five years he was involved with radical political activism all over South Wales. He became more than just a comrade in arms, he became a friend to many of us. A lover to some. He came to the football, attended gigs and just came down the pub.
We were all disappointed when we went out for a farewell meal. He was moving to Corfu. Many of us were looking forward to a cheap holiday. But, after a while, text messages and e-mails went unanswered.
Rumors started circulating that Marco was a cop. A scandalous accusation, just because he wasn’t answering e-mails. Someone we trusted did some digging. It turned out our best mate was, indeed, a spycop.
Over the next few years, an unprecedented number of undercover police were outed. Many of them had been using very dubious practices. There was such an avalanche of reveals that the government was forced to set up a national enquiry.
Each of the spycops had been entangled in broad networks of activists and their friends, and there have been hundreds of spycops deployed over the last half century: in trade unions, political campaigns and community groups. Anyone that dared to challenge authority.
Fast forward almost two decades. I find myself sat on Broadway watching rehearsals for a play about spycops. No, not that Broadway, the one in Roath, Cardiff. In the Royal Oak Pub to be precise. Common/Wealth Theatre were working on ideas to tell the story of undercover cops. They are far more than just a theatre company. They use art as a way of engaging with and empowering communities. The theatre they put on is never traditional or predictable.
Over the last four years, activists from a variety of spied-on groups have sat down with set designers, script writers and actors. We have talked about the different modus operandi of different spycops, how they interacted with activists; some disrupting action, some taking on the role of agent provocateurs.
This research process, along with the ongoing Undercover Policing Inquiry, has been a cathartic process, prompting each other to remember details we may otherwise have forgotten. We talked about the politics that brought us together, the importance of actions we were involved in and the different ways we all dealt with betrayal by a close friend. And, ironically, how this spycops saga has united many of us.
We talked about the music we listened to, the books we read, how we organised before social media, the posters on bedroom walls, the venues we used to meet in and even the font we used on newsletters. No stone was left unturned to make this performance as realistic as possible. Then we had vegan cakes and went to the pub.
The production has come a long way since that afternoon in the back of The Royal Oak. As the opening of the show looms ever closer, the crew has been making the most of the space available in the Corn Exchange, setting up projectors and screens, creating backdrops and props and fine tuning the script.
The venue will recreate the dark playground in which spycops lived out their teenage fantasies; going to gigs, DJing, sleeping around and doing spy shit; whilst getting paid handsomely and occasionally going home to the wife & kids.
Demand The Impossible is not a production about specific individuals. The production touches on miscarriages of justice, the blacklisting of trade unionists and institutional racism. It reflects on some of the things that motivated activists in the first place, like climate change, Black Lives Matter and the inequality of the capitalist system.
There will be no separation between audience and cast. When the performance starts, just like in real life, you will not know who the spycop is. But more than that, you won’t know who is an actor and who is in the audience. The story will unfold around you. Why do we never meet his mates? Why do we never go around his place? Where does he go on his long weekends?
The band Kamikaze Rainbow will be on hand to provide a soundtrack and to give the event the feel of a gig rather than a play. You never know, there might even be actual undercover police in the audience. Just because you’re paranoid, it doesn’t mean they are not out to get you.
Clint Iguana is a member of our Sounding Board.
