Seventy five minutes of nothing. Just watching a kid that you, outside, going about your busy, full, purposeful life, would never even notice.

Imagine if that was your life. In Boy, Leo Butler (writer) and Sacha Ware (director) depict the plight of Liam (played by Frankie Fox), a jobless 17-year-old boy as he drifts helplessly through a day in London. And nothing, in terms of drama, change, story, or event really happens to him or for him. And right there is the pathos, the emotion, the tension, and the heartbreaking reality faced by so many.

White working class males are the ones being failed the most by society; they’re the most likely to be unemployed, leave school early, and commit suicide. One of the biggest lies we are told is that everyone is equal and has the same opportunities in life. Billy Elliot may flicker in the streets outside of Victoria Station, but he’s one of the few. Liam doesn’t see himself in Billy’s shoes, dancing or otherwise.

It’s clear that Liam isn’t a bad kid, or one who will be in trouble or cause tension. He’s lost. With no time, no resources, and no cash, there’s not a lot out there for him. He tries. The job centre send him away because he’s in that limbo between the ages of 16 and 18.  The concept of people in school, without any money to support him, seems alien to them.

We see no family, no friends. He tries to hang around with some boys from his year, but they don’t want to know. Even his eight year old sister Misha (Ruby Bridle), mouth dripping with swear words, bullies him as he tries to take care of her. His parents are absent, perhaps because of work. He can’t articulate his needs because he doesn’t know what they are, and no one has ever asked him before. You get a sense of the futility when an acquaintance (Mohammad Amiri) says to Liam, justifying his own lack of action or ambition, “you follow all the dots and that’s it”.

In many ways for this group, you’re where you started – at the bottom and being ignored. A bit like on the stage they move around, endlessly. The set up is innovative and, whilst initially distracting and disorientating, the movement of the slow moving circle travelator becomes like the slogging path that Liam is on. The people merge with the environment, merge with the boy. He’s never seen by the world in which he lives, failed by the social, political, and educational system.

There are moments in which it all becomes a bit uncomfortable. Laughter from around the largely white middle class audience at the characters munching their chicken wings, or teenage slang at the bus stop, builders speaking in Polish, Liam’s attempts to go to Sports Direct, actually feels dirty to be part of. Like ‘poverty porn’ one writer in the Guardian put it. Boys like Liam will never know this theatre is being made about them. That some people are on their side. Not only could they not afford the tickets, or even the tube fare to get there, it’s not something that would enter their consciousness. Growing up with a message that theatre is for other people, you believe it.

But for people like Liam, everything is for other people. Nothing is for him. Nothing to do, nothing to look forward to, he is a boy lost. No purpose. No hopes. Nothing. That’s the drama. The undramatic. A life that is empty and futile. Uncertain, lonely, and vulnerable. At one point the conveyor belt on which he walks goes one way, whilst he goes the other. Nothing like upward social mobility.

We never fully get a back story, or a sense of Liam’s future. Perhaps that’s because no one really cares about the story of young men in this position. The only professional who, despite his total lack of understanding, actually manages to sum up Liam’s problem, albeit unwares, is the doctor who asks Liam to describe his life in five years time.

There’s silence. Blank. Nothing.

In the quiet desperation and lack of words, Boy articulates so much.

But things are changing, and there seems to be a liberation from this convention. Physical and mental, exercise and fun, solo and social, fun and healthy, zen and zing – this is the era of yoga socials.
http://www.trueyogacollective.com/#/yoga-gets-social/

Festivals have been having a tough time of it. Thousands are held every year, spanning all types of music, arts and culture, and from a high point a couple of years ago, economic and environmental pressures have caused some crashes. A forthcoming conference from the British Arts Festival Association aims to address the question of what festivals and their futures, and how they can not only endure hard times, but contribute towards the communities and societies in which they operate.
The Conference for Festivals: ‘Capacity to Endure’ running over 7th, 8th and 9th of November 2012 at The Southbank Centre and The Barbican features a host of talks, workshops and panels, covering the spectrums of social, economic and environmental sustainability.
It’s not only due to our amateur business skills and lack of interest in accounting that It’s All Happening really do believe in the capacity for festivals to ‘do good’ for the places and faces they touch.
The ethos and emotion of a celebration of creativity is one that inspires most people to start and visit festivals, and such intangible reasons for being are also credible signs of success. One of the key speakers on Social Sustainability is Matt Burman, Head of Programme and Audiences, Warwick Arts Centre and he puts it thus ‘We need to move on from measuring impact in economic terms – the language of miserly bean counters – and talk about the emotional impact, the effect on quality of life, about values of creativity and inspiration beyond those extrinsic factors dictated to us.’
Festivals are valued by audiences and participants for their cultural relevance, the opportunity to engage more deeply in something that matters, to entertain and stimulate, reconnect and discover, and for this reason should be supported.
Contributions to cultural diversity, community cohesion are difficult to measure, but a study by BOP on the effect that Edinburgh Festival had on the city during the 2010 event found that local people were on the whole very positive. . 93% of parents agreed that the Festival event had increased children’s imagination, 89% of locals agreeing that the Festivals increase their pride in their home city, 69% saying that they were now more aware of other cultures, and 55% of reporting feeling that the event had made a difference to their well-being. For giving people kicks, as things go, festivals are surely one of the best routes for communities to go down.
For the pen pushers, political executive and bureaucratic officials, the value of festivals will always be considered in pounds and pence. Unfortunately humans have not yet advanced enough to view the world by any other scale. This event aims to ask what does social sustainability really mean, and is there a more rounded way of judging the impact of an event upon inclusivity, collaboration, community engagement, cultural stimulation – and the contribution to the coffers.

Francesca Baker

Taking niche to a needlepoint thin ness, Trwbador, with their baffling name, Welsh lyrics, and gentle voice, are never going to take the mainstream by storm. Female musicians tend to fall into one of two camps, largely dependent upon which side you swing: you want to be them or bed them. With Angharad Van Rijswijk you just want her to be your little sister; her soft voice and twinkling glockenspiel angelic, and her coy shrugs of the shoulder belie a hint of embarrassment as to why the crowd are looking on at her. As the guy in front of me said ‘voice of an angel’ – but angels never got very far in rock did they?