what dya need books for, ur homeless.
a “support-worker” once asked us this.
this show is our reply.
Back in 2019, we invited gobscure to be one of the participants on the BOOST mentoring scheme. We were aware of gobscure as a writer, sean burn, having heard great things about their play joey, produced by greyscale earlier that year.
They had approached us with their project provoked 2 madness by the brutality ov wealth, an autobiographical show about their experiences of homelessness, and an incisive take-down of various aspects of UK government and local council policy.
Over the course of a week we were able to shape about three quarters of the show, and share it with an invited audience. After that showing I think we were all sure that the project had legs. So we were delighted when gobscure was awarded funding by Arts Council England to finish making and then tour the show, and invited us to mentor the completion of it. Of course, everyone’s plans had to be rethought in the year that followed, but we were still able to open the show in a socially distanced set up at Slung Low’s brilliantly welcoming venue The Holbeck in autumn 2020.
We talked about documenting the whole show on video, but there are sections that really only work in the room live. Third Angel had recently really enjoyed working with Brett Chapman on thirteen short films for The Distraction Agents, and so we asked him if he was interested in collaborating with gobscure on making some short chapters from the show as stand-alone films.
The result is four ‘filmed-jewels’ from the show, created by gobscure, Brett Chapman, Lara Kardas, Alexander Kelly and Lindsay Nicholson at The Holbeck in autumn 2022, with the support of Third Angel and Slung Low. We launched the films online earlier this month and are proud to be able to share them here. We hope you enjoy them.
1. kicking the bucket
2. red tape saves lives
3. magic money trees
4. housing contains the word sing