Guest Blog: Owen Calvert-Lyons On Brixton House's Streamed Plays

Last Thursday, Brixton House launched House to House, releasing plays from our archive to be streamed online for free. With a new play released each week, they will be available to stream for seven days directly from our website. We know that people across the country are stuck at home, unable to go to theatres or enjoy other art forms which bring such joy and inspiration to our lives.

Not being able to go to the theatre for the past two months has reminded me of just how important it is to me. I miss the magic of sitting in a room full of strangers, and, as the lights begin to fade and the music lifts for the start of the show, hearing the collective in-breath of anticipation. Of course, watching theatre online is no substitute for the live experience (I can't wait for theatres, including ours, to be able to open their doors again), but while we can't have that, this is the next best thing.

These plays were originally filmed in 360° VR and designed to be watched through the online platform LIVR. LIVR have very kindly allowed us to use their new LIVR Player, which allows the plays to be watched without the need for a VR headset. You can even use your cursor to rotate the position of the camera to see the whole auditorium!

We've chosen three plays for the House to House programme. The first is Random Selfies by Mike Kenny. This is a beautiful play for children aged 7-11 and their families. It's about Loretta, a girl growing up in London and feeling desperately lonely. This felt like a really important play to include, since thousands of children will be experiencing loneliness during this lockdown period. Even if they are in lockdown within a loving family, loneliness is such a deeply personal experience that parents may not even be aware that their child is going through this.

For many children, they may not have even acknowledged the feeling to themselves as loneliness - it's a very complex feeling and, by its nature, evades easy articulation. I hope that children and families across the country watch this play together and use it as a way of talking about the feelings of loneliness which affect us all, regardless of age. It's a really heart-warming story and Loretta is a wonderful character to spend time with.

We also chose GREY by Koko Brown. This play felt particularly important right now as it explores black women's mental health. As protests continue in the USA and around the world in response to the shocking murder of George Floyd, we are reminded of race inequality and the impact that this has on all of our lives. The Covid crisis too has highlighted inequalities across our society and their effect on our health. Koko uses her signature style of lyricism and poetry to explore the mental health crisis in the UK and ask why black people are so much less likely to get help.

It felt important to us to place GREY next to its sister play WHITE, Koko's earlier work about identity and her experience of growing up as a mixed-race child - striving for an identity which is neither black nor white, but both. These are two beautiful plays in their own right, but if you can watch them relatively close together, I think they draw together two separate aspects of race and identity into a really beautiful whole.

I hope that audiences enjoy these plays from our archive. Alongside each play will be opportunities for audiences to interact with the creative teams through Twitter and Zoom chats. These streamed performances are not a substitute for live theatre, but until Brixton House opens in 2021, we hope they will bring some inspiration to your home.

Find more information on the House to House plays here

Photo credit: Mariana Feijó

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