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.
Additional readings
In advance of this performance, there were some preliminary readings held in different settings:
Friday 27 February 2015
7.30pm
(A Friend's Living Room)
Drinks and a joint read-through in a friend's living room in N16.
Saturday 7 March 2015
7.30pm (Rochester Castle, Wetherspoons)
Drinks and a joint read-through at the Rochester Castle pub, 145 Stoke Newington High Street, London N16 0NY.
Other readings took place in summer 2014 at Our Shop in Nunhead and at The Forest Fringe in Edinburgh.
Other readings took place in summer 2014 at Our Shop in Nunhead and at The Forest Fringe in Edinburgh.
Downing Street is published by New Documents, Los Angeles.
Publication details: 245 x 155 mm, 84 p., b/w & colour, sewn, soft cover.
Price: £10 (limited number of copies available to buy from The Showroom)
First Lady Michelle Obama and Samantha Cameron talk before having tea in the private residence at Downing Street in London, England, May 24, 2011. Official White House photo by Lawrence Jackson.
