‘Campaign-led’ theatre exposes injustices on stage hoping those in power can effect change

Woodhill at the North Wall Arts Centre, Oxford, from October 19-20 Review by JON LEWIS

LUNG is a company making ‘campaign-led’ theatre that exposes injustices on stage with the hope that those in power can effect change. Audiences are encouraged to sign petitions after the show. In Trojan Horse in 2020 the subject was Islamic extremism in Birmingham’s school system while in Who Cares? in 2021 the target was our failing social services system. Now, in Matt Woodhead’s verbatim drama Woodhill, the attention is on a series of suicides of young men in Woodhill high security prison in Milton Keynes.

The narrative is divided into two. On stage three characters, Lee (Tyler Brazao), Janet (Marina Climent) and Carole (Miah Robinson) express the physicality of the families of the loved ones who died, miming via dance and physical theatre to the words spoken in a voiceover by the trio’s alter egos Lee (Delroy Atkinson), Janet (Julie Jupp) and Carole (Clare Corbett). The victims are represented on stage by a hooded and masked shamanistic figure (Stanley Duventru-Huvet) who throws powder into the air and distributes torn paper around the stage and holding a microphone as if addressing a demo. His words are spoken by (Corey Montague-Sholay) over the speakers.

On stage the actors are constantly moving cardboard boxes and their mobile metal shelves (designer, Lulu Tam). The boxes represent the stacks of evidence gathered by inquiries into the thirty plus suicides as well as suggesting they contain the prisoners’ meagre belongings from their cells. It’s heartbreaking when the boxes are shuffled together to form their coffins. We listen to distraught family members explaining that they preferred to die than face the crooked guards and drug gang members within the endless concrete prison walls.

The audience hears a litany of failings, some easily preventable, some needing a root and branch overhaul. It is shocking to hear the words from official enquiries into Woodhill exposing the criminality of the prison guards. Sami El-Enany’s hypnotic score and Owen Crouch’s punchy sound design, allied to Will Monks’ precise lighting design create an atmosphere that is edgy and dangerous. Again, LUNG have created a vital piece of political theatre with national significance.