There was something telling about the National paper reviews that were published around the National Theatre’s play of Kerry Jackson, it was as if all the reviewers were white and middle class and had an expectation of what a play should be when performed at the NT and concluded that this production was most definitely not that.
Now I’ve just used the term “white and middle class” which doesn’t really mean anything does it? But, I can safely say you’ve got something in your head that I intended you to see. I don’t need to give you any more depth or explanation than those brief words, because it’s a stereotype, something that we all know, but equally something that actually exists. Do all white middle class people conform to this stereotype? Of course not, not all of them are white to start off with, but are there enough who do, to create one? Absolutely.
Somewhere in the 21st Century, the word and notion of stereotype has been corrupted to mean myth or legend. Something that was based on conceivably a smidgen of truth that has been corrupted so far from its true meaning to make it now just pure storytelling, think Robin Hood, there was a place called Loxley, but after that, who knows?
But that’s not what a stereotype is, our world runs on the dependence of stereotypes and their behaviour, they exist, it’s what enables marketeers, advertisers, public relation experts and even AI social media coders to earn their keep.
First it was straight forward stereotypes, based on economic wealth A,B,C1,C2,D & E. Then it evolved into sub groupings, the Yuppies (Young Upwardly Mobile) and the NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard) and today we can go even deeper to the Nano & Micro-Influencers, but these are all stereotypes and yet they exist in real life as their behaviour is observable and predictable.
In the race to be inclusive, which in truth normally just means being inclusive with ideas and literally nothing else i.e.” think like I do then I don’t care what sex, gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation or disability you have, you’re all welcome here” but “if you don’t think like me then you’re a privileged, racist, homophobic, ableist, even if you do happen to be Working Class, Poor, Black, Gay & Disabled.”
I watched Kerry Jackson at a preview performance, purely by chance, next to the Walthamstow Village Tapas restaurant owner who inspired the play. I did not see the play the way the critics did, because I’ve lived a real-life and unlike them, I’ve been in every experience in that play, except in the main, in the reverse.
You see I’ve been homeless for thirteen years, but I am emphatically middle class. I was sitting in the National for crying out loud, how could I be anything else [joke..ish]. I have a special dispensation to pay in cash (could you see someone working class insisting on that), now that they only take credit-cards and I know more about theatre, having started going when just 14 years old, beginning with Tom Stoppard’s The Real Thing at the Sherman Theatre in Cardiff, than most people who attend any Central London performance.
Even though I grew up in a small Welsh mining community my white mother would take me, the only black in the village, to the Welsh Capital once every two months to see a play there.
So the criticism of the situation being unbelievable only comes from people who’ve had myopic lives. I’ve run pubs filled with working class people in Wales, who’ve mocked me for “speaking proper” and been a cleaner in one, when living in Butlers Wharf near Tower Bridge, the Anchor Tap pub, where the Landlord used to love telling his punters he had the only toilet cleaner in Britain who turned up in real Armani (true story).
And as for her characters not having depth, that to me seemed to miss the whole point of the play. They were obviously all stereotypes, That was precisely its purpose. Those stereotypes weren’t as solid as you’d think though. That “think like me” drive was strong here. As soon as our character experiencing homelessness turns out to support Capital Punishment our lead character throws out the notion that he’s workshy and he is now instead, misunderstood.
The times I’ve had conversation with Remain Voters (see again, a stereotype but I don’t need to add anything here, you know I mean the British public who voted to Remain in the structures of the European Union in the 2016 EU Referendum) who would get annoyed, and say to me, I hate debating this with you Paul, you keeping bringing facts into the argument, is a perfect reflection of that.
Nearly everyone who voted to Remain, didn’t vote in the EU elections, yet nearly everyone who voted to leave, did. It was why UKIP had over a third of our elected MEPs. Would anyone like to explain the depth in that thinking? Explain why this would, or even, could be the case?
Because sometimes people are just idiots, they do what they think is the right thing to do and follow their prescribed stereotype, it is that, afterall, that marks out their tribe. There is no depth or meaning to their behaviour; it's just how they feel they need to be to fit in. The 2.1 Kids, Volvo, dog & semi-detached house to mark middle class success, may have disappeared but it’s been replaced with the eco-warrior, vegan eating, poop cleaning and cycling. It's not the characters that are meant to learn anything in this play, it is us.
Becuase here, as in real life, pragmatism beats sensitivity, nobleness is killed by ego, concern is replaced with performance, youth acknowledged as being naive, loneliness trumps values and it all happens under the overriding notion that reality doesn’t wrap up into nice neat explanations. I thought it reflected our vacuous nonsensical 21st Century life perfectly.
We live in a world of stereotypes and Kerry Jackson delves and explores them very well indeed. Let’s hope the critics find more depth in their criticism next time they can’t find the nuance in something, simply because it doesn’t spell it out for them in the way they need it too, elsewise they should wear their Disney’s Ratatouille's critic stereotype with pride.
