Blair's Children
June 2013
Forty years on since Robert Patrick’s Kennedy’s Children opened at the Kings Head Theatre in Islington before doing the 70s equivalent of going viral. Then, five characters in a New York bar recounted their own experience of Kennedy’s Camelot and the demise of their 60s dreams and heroes. Now, five London writers April de Angelis, Georgia Fitch, Anders Lustgarten, Mark Norfolk, Paula B Stanic and The Cockpit reinvent the format to review the legacy of New Labour.
The scene has changed to a London high street chain coffee shop. The five characters recall the Blair era of personal and social wins but political losses – with a shared sense of guilt at the way initial hopes failed to generate lasting gains, ending for some in a confidence-sapping sense of betrayal.
The first commission under the Cockpit’s Theatre of Ideas And Disruptive Panache banner, Charlotte Westenra directs with design by Paul Wills.
An entertaining but deeply felt response to the decade of spin. It's angry but it's real.
"****" Entertainment Focus
"***" Michael Billington
"What makes this play fresh, however, is the innovative idea of assigning one playwright to each character – meaning that each speaks with a genuinely individualised voice. The acting too is superb. You really believe that these people exist and are talking directly to you – the fact that you're both in a theatre is rather beside the point." One Stop Arts
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