No Milk for the Foxes Archives

No Milk for the Foxes – Beats & Elements

6Jul

By Paul DownhamNo Comments

REVIEWS

No Milk for the Foxes – Beats & Elements

Working class culture rarely gets a look in anywhere in theatreland and when it does it's all too often patronising twaddle with some pathetic redemptive narrative thrown in to salve middle class guilt. Thankfully this funny and often bleak 2015 work from Beats & Elements avoids that as co-founders Conrad Murray and Paul Cree based this tale of two security guards surviving on the margins of society on their own experiences, and that of their mates Murray’s Spaxx is a half Indian geezer from Mitcham who is whiling away the hours with Cree’s more considered white, working class Marx on a zero-hour contract night shift in the office of a rundown factory. Between chats about life living from one crap payday to the next, their dreams and. insecurities they throw in some top-cla...

Hard hitting urban drama No Milk for the Foxes makes a welcome return online

Try as it might theatre all too often gets working class culture badly wrong unless it is created by people who have lived experience of daily struggle and social disadvantage. That’s exactly why the online revival of Beats & Elements’ 2015 production of No Milk for the Foxes is very welcome. Using spoken word, beatboxing and live looping Beats & Elements founders Conrad Murray and Paul Cree explored David Cameron's England from the perspective of their own class. It’s the tale of security guards Marx, a white working-class male from Croydon, and Spaxx, an Anglo-Indian from Mitcham, counting down the hours on a zero hours nightshift. So did Conrad base these two funny and angry men on anyone he knew, or they are composites? “It is when it comes to Spaxx, and it is a...

Beats & Elements & Camden People’s Theatre release their hip hop theatre production No Milk for the Foxes

Beats & Elements and Camden People's Theatre’s 2015 production of No Milk for the Foxes is released online from Tuesday, 16th June. The original production explored David Cameron's England from a working-class perspective through spoken word, beatboxing and live looping. It revolves around Marx, a white working-class male from Croydon, and Anglo-Indian Spaxx from Mitcham. They are two security guards on a one-night shift surviving on zero hours contracts. The piece poses the question - is it important to aspire to a higher station or better just to accept your lot? As the television monitors buzz in front of them, two friends pass the night shift debating status, class, and milk. Marx is keeping his head down, working hard and praying his contract will be extended. He i...