Funded by and performed within Camden People’s Theatre, this piece dramatised 17 years of practice-based research within Children’s Homes and Children’s Prisons conducted by Claire MacNeill. The piece examined the politics of British Care systems and their impact on the individuals growing up and working within them. The piece used: film footage, interviews, verbatim theatre and interactive techniques to shine a light on what Claire experienced when working within these settings. The purpose of this project was to reveal the ways in which rigid system colonise the childhoods of those at their mercury.
Colonising Childhood, CPT
The Colonisation of Childhood
Do you Remember…Reversible jumpers, Snap bracelets, Fraggle rock, Small spaces, Bruised knees, School uniforms, Tuck shops, Grangehill, Lockable diaries, Mr. Men books, Tree houses and making dens, Peanut butter sandwiches and Glow worms?
This piece explores childhood and the hidden underworld of Britain that robs and re authors the childhoods of the poor. Drawing on expansive real-world research, verbatim theatre and carnivalesque performance practices – ‘The Colonisation of Childhood’ asks us to remember childhood and reconsider what we think we know about the realities of others.
Photography by Ali Wright
