Grenfell: in the words of survivors – new play is an angry demand for accountability

• Often focused on communities that are marginalised or excluded, verbatim theatre emerged in the 1970s.
• It uses the words of real people as the basis for theatrical performance.
• Grenfell expertly combines verbatim performances drawn from first-hand accounts with a film made by the survivors in their ongoing campaign for justice.
• Also threaded through the play are staged excerpts from the transcripts of the Grenfell Tower Enquiry (2017-22).

The challenges facing verbatim theatre

• Creating theatre from the words of “ordinary people” can run the risk of speaking for the marginalised people theatre makers aspire to “give voice” to.
• Done without sufficient care, verbatim might appropriate their stories, or paint those it apparently “speaks for” only as victims.
• Verbatim theatre may lack nuance in its depictions, suspending its subjects in a traumatic moment, or a position of grievance or helplessness.

Never Forget

• The survivors’ remembrances culminate in a sensitive yet truly harrowing account of the catastrophic fire.
• Movable archive boxes marked with the number of each flat, act as building blocks of various locations in the minimalist set and also contain the sombre relics of the fire.
• A vacated seating bank, illuminated from above, honours those that were lost.
• Our own work on The Verbatim Formula research uses elements of verbatim with communities of young people who have experienced social care.