24 (Day) Q&A
Following the success of The Key Workers Cycle, Annie Jenkins’ 24 (Day): The Measure of My Dreams is the first in a trilogy of plays bringing together local artists, community performers and professional creatives to explore what it means to live, work, love, pray, celebrate and mourn in Islington.
Find out more about the project in this Q&A with the Almeida’s Director of Participation and Work for Young People Dani Parr.
What is 24 (Day): The Measure of My Dreams about?
24 (Day) follows two main characters, both born and bred in North London; Liz (75) and her grandson Mark (25). The story starts at sunrise and takes the form of a 24-hour road trip around North London, ending at sunrise the following day on Highbury Fields. The day has started badly for both of them – Liz has had a scan to see if her breast cancer is progressing, and Mark has failed his knowledge test (to become a black cab driver). They are determined to distract themselves as much as possible rather than talk to each other about what really matters, and so they race around North London going to a care home, a pub to watch an Arsenal game and Rowans to dance and play bowls. By the end, they learn a poignant lesson in what it means to look after and rely on one another.
What was the inspiration for a three-year commitment to this work?
We spoke a lot during lockdown with our Artistic Director Rupert Goold, about what it means to be a local theatre. Even though the Almeida has a national and global reputation, we felt we wanted to really interrogate what it means to be in Islington, and how we can be meaningful to our local community. After the success of The Key Workers Cycle in 2022, which celebrated the phenomenal key workers that got us through the pandemic, we wanted to build on that legacy and create a three-year programme that would be created by, with and for our local community.
In the first year, we are looking at a day in the life of an Islington resident. The brilliant Jean Woollard, playing Liz, played a small role in The Key Workers Cycle as a community actor and has come back to be one of two paid professional actors, playing the lead role in 24 (Day). Year two will investigate a lifetime; what does a lifetime of somebody in North London look like? We want to do this through the key moments in people’s lives; birth, marriages, death, and cultural traditions, paying focus to the most dominant demographics and cultures in North London.
Year three will explore the millennia – how did Islington come to be? Looking at imagined stories in North London and examining what Islington might become for the next millennium.
What do you hope to achieve after each year?
Conceptually, we want to create a three-year project that examines the hidden corners, cultures, and people in Islington. Artistically, we want to scale up each year, be ambitious, and in all different forms. We would even love to go out to different venues, perhaps the Arsenal stadium!
How did you come to choose the partnerships that you are working with and what are you learning from them?
We are working with at least three local organisations/charities over the next three years, and will build on these partnerships for the next two years.
All Change are a small local arts organisation who work with a variety of groups, and we are very proud to be continuing our partnership with them following The Key Workers Cycle. We are predominantly working with their elderly group who are creating content with writer Annie Jenkins, on a scene based in a residential care home. The scene and play touches on the topic of dementia, and we are consulting with one of the residents of All Change who has this lived experience, to make sure it is an authentic portrayal. We are also keen to override the stereotypes of age and fragility; expect musical numbers and magic realism.
We have worked with Arsenal in the Community on other projects and were keen to continue that relationship. We knew that we needed Arsenal to play a part in this story as we had gathered material from groups across all ages and demographics in Islington, and Arsenal always came up as an integral part of their lives. We are working with their group of adults with learning disabilities, and their 16–18-year-old girls’ group to depict an Arsenal game.
This is our first time working with Cardboard Citizens and they are an incredible organisation who do brilliant work with people from low socio-economic backgrounds, in particular some who have lived experience of homelessness. We have held consultation workshops in which the group has contributed to the content of the play and about 10 people from their participants’ group are going to perform in the play.
Can you tell us a bit more about the rehearsal process and building the play with these groups?
We have completed a series of workshops and writing exercises with a number of groups to build the play with and around them. We also went out to local history groups, and met with some of the community cast who were in The Key Workers Cycle. We threw out sentences like ‘Islington is…’, ‘Community is…’ to develop lots of free writing and inspire ideas. We asked people for their stories on unusual friendships, particularly intergenerational friendships, their most surprising nights out in North London, stories of gigs and live music, favourite bands; some of our older participants spoke about seeing The Beatles in Finsbury Park in the 80’s and that has been woven into the story of the lead character, Liz, and her husband, told through a flashback scene. There are lots of little moments and fragments from all the workshops and discussions we’ve had that have made it into the play.
Why should audiences come to see the play?
We are aiming high and have big ambitions for the quality of the piece. Something I love about community plays is the epic feeling of having 70 – 100 people on stage, mobilising and coming together. It will be electric for the audience and an epic event.
24 (Day): The Measure of My Dreams plays Thu 3 – Sat 5 Aug. Explore ways you can support our community work here >
