Tuesday, November 5

Tag: Barrie Keeffe

Sus – Hope Street Theatre
5Feb By Mark DavorenNo Comments
North West

Sus – Hope Street Theatre

Barrie Keeffe’s play Sus exploring the deep-set systemic racism within the Metropolitan Police and society at large premiered over forty years ago yet with the resignation of Commissioner Cressida Dick less than two years ago following her failure to deal with misogyny and racism in the force, this powerful play still resonates. Whilst set on the eve of Thatcher’s landslide election victory in 1979, there are obvious and relevant parallels to Brexit’s ‘taking our country back’ that are reinforced by current-day statistics that tell us that black people are still nine times more likely to be stopped and searched than their white contemporaries. Unemployed father of three, Delroy (Rikki Dallas), has been brought in for interrogation by two police officers, Wilby (David J Williamson) a...
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SUS – Park Theatre
26Sep By Caroline WorswickNo Comments
London

SUS – Park Theatre

Writer Barrie Keeffe’s social and political drama examines unemployment, institutional racism in the Police and the use of SUS law (suspect under suspicion) which was incorporated into the 1824 Vagrancy Act.  This stop and search section of the act was used extensively, particularly targeting people of colour and it allowed the Police to make the lives of their victims extremely uncomfortable. SUS is set on the eve of the 1979 election victory by Margaret Thatcher and the Conservatives, which ousted James Callaghan’s Labour from office.  The two policemen on duty, Karn (Alexander Neal) and Wilby (Fergal Coghlan) both support the conservative cause, largely due to Thatcher’s support of more stringent laws to support the police in their duties. Thatcher’s speech ‘Where there ...
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