Personal Histories: 1980 1

Watching the BBC's Black and British series has been having a profound effect on me- especially in programmes that explore the 1980s and 1990s in UK; when I was in my twenties and thirties. I realise now how much being at university from the beginning of the first Thatcher government shielded me from the worst of the seismic social shifts the country experienced. I started my first job at the end of 1984 with a plan to make my name as a theatre director headlining at the National by the time I was thirty... LMAO! ... it is funny in hindsight but wasn't at all out of the bounds of possibility at the time' I was a graduate -a BLACK graduate from a brand new degree course and one of the top three theatre schools and had earned distinction at both. I'd put in a year's teaching practice in a Quaker boarding school (another cloistered year) as part of my back-up plan in case I didn't get the breaks and I'd landed a job at an exciting modern arts centre in S.E.London. With that foundation why not a career that ended up in the mainstream- I'd been there already! I was always aware of the black kids who weren't where I was, what I felt I owed to them -no less to myself; was the confidence that whatever I had, it was because I'd earned it and was capable of delivering what was necessary. In fact; true to my mother's goading; I always delivered more than was expected, ironically; usually with disappointing results. It was surprising how scared Boards of directors got when their conversation-piece voluntary organisation suddenly looked like it meant business!

With hindsight it crystal clear that, in 1984, I should have aimed for as high as I could; to have got myself as far up that greasy pole as being a black graduate bladiblah could have propelled me. But I was afraid of being the Token Black. I wanted to show and PROVE the validity of any title I might carry. I also had a soppy urge to "give something back" and share my good fortune as an immigrant who had completed a 'classical' education in England. So working in Deptford running the Albany Empire's youth arts project fit the bill on several fronts. 

I rounded off my work with the Deptford YOOF dem by producing a season of solo shows written and featuring the individuals most likely to find work in 'The Business'. It was a way of getting them 'seen' and it worked for four or five of the dozen which ain't bad going. Two got into a Channel 4 sitcom, one ended up with the Jiving Lindy Hoppers, (though it has destroyed her hips), one got a job with a touring company... Anyway, UNLIKE my predecessor, who'd grabbed an opportunity to leap into the BBC (taking more credit for his debut script than the kids who'd 'contributed to it' thought was fair... allegedly), I finally felt I'd done good by the kids and it was time for MY shot...

It was 1987...

Global financial meltdown! Fortunes lost on shares! Charities hit hard after government encouraged them to exchange land and property (now interestingly much more valuable than before) into now worthless shares! Government institutes cuts starting as always and most viciously with Arts and Culture! Venues and institutions closed leaving surviving staff desperately clinging onto to their posts, hardly daring to leave their desks in case their jobs disappeared when they weren't looking!

I'd missed my boat.

So I adapted to survive. I'd always told the Yoof that theatre training wasn't just about performance preparation: it is an amalgam of a range of interactive skills. It wasn't hard for me to use my director's training to manage enterprises and then organisations like the LLGC and the Actors Centre and then Black Theatre Forum. But in each case, my vision was greater than that of the people I worked for...