Throughout the 1960s, now two-time Palme D’or winner Ken Loach was working for the BBC as a director. He discussed various prevalent social issues within the UK through his contributions to their Wednesday Play, in the form of 10 short films. The most prevalent of which being a TV play named Cathy Come Home, which focused upon themes of housing, employment, families; and argues for the collective public’s right to every one of these social benefits. Cathy Come Home showcases this message through its narrative, televising a “drama about a young mother caught in an impossible, inhuman system, which leaves her homeless, destroys her marriage and ultimately robs her of her children” (Allan, 2016).
Many of these production decisions and techniques are extremely reminiscent of the various dramatic practices that comprise the Theatre of the Oppressed. A series of theatrical techniques and philosophies, such as forum theatre and newspaper theatre, initially developed and employed by Brazilian theatre practitioner Augusto Boal in the 1950s and 1960s. It is then quite fitting that Cardboard Citizens – a London-based, Forum Theatre focused, community theatre company who specialise in working with the homeless community – were employed by Shelter charity themselves to produce an onstage adaptation of Cathy Come Home, on the 50th anniversary of the airing of Ken Loach’s original TV play. This was done so with a pointed reason behind it. To ask the question “homelessness 50 years on – what’s changed?” with a secondary motive of reflecting “on a moment when art became a powerful tool to affect change” (Cardboard Citizens, undated). But was the production successful, as a piece of forum theatre, in raising awareness and addressing the modern housing crisis through theatre?
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