WHAT ABOUT ENGLAND?


‘It’s the NHS not the GHS, fucking Global Health Service.’

Having fled her younger sister’s parents’ evening, Danielle finds herself alone in Manchester. A monologue written in response to the provocation, ‘we should protect the vulnerable’, the challenge being to write the opposite of my own beliefs.

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Produced as part of Slingshot at Salford’s Islington Mill, September 2016, directed by Ali Pidsley.

The idea behind Slingshot was, “for many of us, political engagement starts and ends on social media; bound by algorithms, our howls of rage go unnoticed by the other half of the population. So again and again we just share the same ideas; regurgitating the bias of our closed cliques.  

But the country is far bigger than our ‘echo-chamber’ and it is divided more than it ever has been. It is not just here either; across all of Europe and over in the States politics is increasingly polarised too. People believe the opposite to you with as much clarity and passion as you have - what makes them wrong?”

What About England? is available to read with introduction at Orlando online.

Photos by Michael Mannion