Fuck you speech (Working on The Deal Versus the People)

I don’t want to read or hear about how much worse the UK is becoming. I don’t want to know about the financial tornado that’s about to hit leaving the rich richer and the poor poorer. In my mind, until recently, the horrific nature of the Conservative party has always been a far off myth that would never really come into fruition in my life time. I’m 21 and I have heard a lot about the evil of Margaret Thatcher; I genuinely didn’t think the horror would come round again.

I’m sure that many people are as switched off as I am when it comes to politics, however, as I’m at a pretty poignant stage in my life and looking to begin a career in the arts, I am listening out for how bad it’s really going to get and to be honest how it will affect me, my ambitions and the people around me.

At the moment I am volunteering for Common Wealth and am so genuinely uplifted and intrigued by the work that they do and create. Making theatre about real stuff is good. It is by no accident that the current project/play The Deal Versus the People is focusing on whether people feel they have power in a nation where the government tricks and trials ordinary working class people. As I said before using real situations and real people to create theatre is such an interesting way of working. At this time learning from Common Wealth is inspiring; I like theatre to say something, change something, demand your attention and make you think about it for longer than just five minutes after the performance has finished.

I got involved with some of the audition workshops and they were brilliant. To see people riled up about what they believe and what they want to change with so much passion was pretty amazing. We all wrote a ‘Fuck you speech’, which included everything you would like to say to a particular person and this is mine:

Don’t obliterate my future please

Don’t cut my funds

Don’t rip hope from me

Don’t steal my creativity

Don’t damage my community

Don’t make my aspirations suffer

Don’t shit on the Theatres

Don’t shit on the Arts centres or Community centres

And please do not sap me of a soul, force me to work in a job I don’t enjoy and crush my dreams.