My Country; A Work in Progress: in the Words of People Across the UK
- Submitting institution
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Manchester Metropolitan University
- Unit of assessment
- 27 - English Language and Literature
- Output identifier
- 439
- Type
- A - Authored book
- DOI
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-
- Publisher
- Faber & Faber
- ISBN
- 9780571339365
- Open access status
- Out of scope for open access requirements
- Month of publication
- March
- Year of publication
- 2017
- URL
-
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- Supplementary information
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- Request cross-referral to
- -
- Output has been delayed by COVID-19
- No
- COVID-19 affected output statement
- -
- Forensic science
- No
- Criminology
- No
- Interdisciplinary
- No
- Number of additional authors
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1
- Research group(s)
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A - Manchester Writing School
- Proposed double-weighted
- No
- Reserve for an output with double weighting
- No
- Additional information
- Process:
My Country was commissioned for the Dorfman at The National Theatre in 2017. In the days following the Brexit referendum, a team from the National Theatre recorded people nationwide, aged 9 to 97. As writer, I was given this raw material, and asked to produce a draft script before rehearsals with a small company of seven actors. The interviews selected by me were to be used verbatim, although I was also accorded some artistic freedom to be creative with text NOT based on interview. The play was to be an immediate response to the Brexit vote at a time when the implications of the result were unclear. Research involved reading through scores of interviews; reading of political speeches on both sides of the argument; and exhaustive research into TV footage and documentary of the entire Referendum process.
Insights:
The challenges of being largely confined to verbatim text were considerable, as was the necessity of protecting the identities of interviewees. During rehearsal, I discovered that creating regional characters (Caledonia, Cymru, North East etc.) allowed the word-for-word voices of the regions to speak literally. With this insight, I went on to create the non-verbatim character of Britannia, a voice that could speak historically and poetically against the raw interview-texts. The originality of My Country resides in this juxtaposition. The drama became an intervention into the political life of the UK, which was more than the sum of its verbatim parts.
Dissemination:
After the NT run, My Country toured the UK. Theatres included Citizens Theatre, Glasgow; Curve, Leicester; Derry Playhouse; Live Theatre, Newcastle; National Theatre of Wales; Sage, Gateshead; Salisbury Playhouse and Home, Manchester. In November 2017, My Country was a BBC2 Film, directed by Rufus Norris. The script was published by Faber Drama and widely reviewed by print, radio and TV.
- Author contribution statement
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- Non-English
- No
- English abstract
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