Not in my name

Tags: arts | Toxteth | young consultants

On the 9^th of February I attended a play with Toxteth Sports Centre as part of my work with myplace.The play, Not in my Name,was written and directed by Alice Bartlett and performed at the Unity Theatre by a group from the new Fuse Theatre in Liverpool which is in partnership with the Merseyside Police and Liverpool County Council.

The play was centred on a Muslim extremist setting off a bomb in Liverpool City Centre and targeted audiences around racism, religion and their local community. Fitting, due to the fact that the work I am doing with Toxteth revolves largely around participation from young people in the area, and the difficulty lies in getting people from different backgrounds to join in. The core group of young people currently involved with Toxteth are mostly Muslim.

The idea of the play is to look in detail at all races, and how the portrayal of a terrorist attack can have a knock on effect, mainly from the media, into the community, kicking off racism towards ethnic groups. It is a positive play in that sense but was still slightly apprehensive taking a group from that background in!

The play was detailed and looks at the Quran and Christianity, and compares all religions, exploring the negatives and positives and media sensualisation in depth, although toward the end it seemed to be trying to educate the audience rather than telling a story.The actors play different characters and use speaking to other characters and also speaking their own thoughts to show emotions and beliefs.There is a lot of aggression and I was reminded of the Leeds and Bradford race attacks. It was also set in 2011, which made me worry about if something like this was to happen and how easily it could!The play shows a bomb going off in a shopping centre by a well known and popular young male who has been mislead by a Muslim extremist after attending a Mosque because of the racism he experienced.

It shows the aftermath: news channels commenting on the injured, the hospitals where the patients are, and then the police making arrests and questioning the family of the bomber.This leads on to a look at the attitudes of the community afterwards, the violence breaking out between different ethnicities and then looks into the mistakes we make about people from different backgrounds.

Apart from a small group of people at the back of the audience talking and laughing through most of the play, everyone was hooked.I was quite scared through most of it, possibly shaken from the loud bang that went off at the beginning, even though I knew it was coming! However I was also concerned about how little I know about religion and the fact that we still have to deal with ‘target' groups of young people from different backgrounds.After coming out of the theatre I felt naive, I also felt that the work ahead will be tough but that this is what myplace is all about: the opportunity for young people from all races and religions, all ethnic backgrounds, sizes and ages, and any gender, to come together and put any past issues to rest!

It's an opportunity for young people to make a difference: after all this was a play written, created and acted out by young people on a subject which lots of ‘older' people would turn their nose up at or possibly fear putting it out there in case of a negative backlash!

By Frank Fallon, myplace Young Consultant

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