Downing Street: a sketch of a performance by seven actors, with the audience
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Saturday 14 March 2015, 2–4pm, with performance at 2.30pm
Free, no booking required
A play responding to the dilemma created when art is collected and appropriated as radical chic.
Shortly after the last general election, artist Eva Weinmayr learned that her work Today’s Question (2006) had been chosen by David and Samantha Cameron to hang at 10 Downing Street in the Prime Minister’s private residence. Her art had apparently won the approval of the most powerful politician in the country – a man who was about to start radically cutting funds for the arts and education. An attempt to contact Cameron and his wife about their choice was ignored, so Weinmayr – along with writer John Moseley and journalist Titus Kroder – created the play Downing Street in order to have the conversation she had been denied.
The script imagines Samantha and David inviting Eva for a visit. After Eva has tea with Samantha, things turn to blood and guts and the audience chimes in with a fractious critique, suggesting different turns and dialogues.
Downing Street credits:
Written by John Moseley, Titus Kroder and Eva Weinmayr.
Directed by Hester Chillingworth.
Performed by some actors and the audience.
Supported by The Elephant Trust.
