Three Ghosts of Silvertown - Review

Tate Institute, London

***

Written by James Kenworth

Directed by Jade Ward McFarlane

Jamal Abdul, Yasmine Meaden and Katie Smale

Set in the site-specific beauty of the Tate Institute, itself nestling in the massive shadow of its eponymous sugar refinery, James Kenworth’s play, his seventh in the Newham series, seeks to funnel Silvertown's history into a two-hour drama.

The play boasts impressive work from a gifted company of enthusiastic young locals that give the evening a pulse of authenticity. They in turn are led by four professional actors, all delivering solid work. Over the course of the narrative however there is only one standout monologue, from Katie Smale as Lizzie an East End prostitute, who harrowingly describes the horrors, humiliation and misogyny that she is forced to endure.

Otherwise Kenworth’s writing is shallow, crass and expositional. Amidst a relentless stream of (immaculately researched) facts, and focusing on the Silvertown Strike of 1889 led by Karl Marx's daughter Eleanor, Kenworth seeks to politically bludgeon his audience with all the subtlety of a Class War brick being hurled through a banker's window. There is no dramatic class to his writing and little credible storyline or crafted structure to care about.

And while Kenworth clearly sets out to bash the rich through his prose, he’s clumsily selective in his choice of targets. With his story lazily jumping through the ages, spanning the 19th century to the present day, he conveniently for example chooses to ignore London’s latter-day epidemic of knife-crime that is blighting the lives of so many of the capital’s more deprived young people.

Political and social messaging, especially about London, can be done with wit, class and pathos. One only has to consider the works of Charles Dickens, Barrie Keefe and, far more recently the lyrics of Louis Dunford, to appreciate the wry and sometimes brutal elegance with which social commentary can be skilfully delivered.

This show’s three stars are for its terrific young, local talent.

Runs until 30th August

Photo credit: Alexander Abimbola