It takes a riot?

This is the discussion panel at the end of the first performance of The Riots at the Bernie Grant Centre in Tottenham after its transfer from the Tricycle Theatre in Kilburn. On the right is Stafford Scott, a local community leader, next to Gillian Slovo who wrote the play. On the left is Gina, a young woman who was in prison four years ago but now runs the café in the Centre. The Riots is a play in the tradition established in recent years by Nick Kent at Tricycle, of dramas based on current events and using the words of those involved; many of them in effect public inquiries. For this one, based on the riots and looting in English cities early last August, Gillian Slovo and Cressida Brown conducted 60-odd interviews in the weeks after the events, with victims, community members, police, politicians and a few of those who took part in the disturbances. Although as the disorder spread opportunistic looting became the dominant activity, in Tottenham it definitely started as a political protest provoked by the police killing a local man and then lying about it, in a historical context of intense antagonism between local black people and the police. Bernie Grant was a leader who did much to tackle the problems and is remembered fondly and admired in the area. Gillian Slovo is the daughter of white Communists who were in the forefront of the campaign against apartheid in South Africa. The mixed (age, race, class, gender) audience were riveted by the performance and almost all stayed for the discussion, which ranged widely over people's reactions and responses to the riots and to The Riots. We felt privileged to be part of it, particularly on the day after two of Stephen Lawrence's murderers were finally convicted. Justice has to be fought for, again and again. Some tactics are more effective than others, obviously.