Blog Posts
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Gender Neutral Toilets: Theatre, Diversity and ‘Inclusion’?
In the last few months, visiting theatres in London for work and pleasure, I’ve noticed the widespread introduction of gender neutral toilets — not (in the ones I have visited) as individual totally private cubicles, nor as necessary additional ‘everyone’ spaces for the comfort and inclusion of trans and non-binary people. But as the only option,…
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Notes from the Rehearsal Room: Identity Politics
I was fortunate enough to shadow the hip hop theatre company Beats & Elements during their rehearsal process for the play High Rise Estate of Mind, which ran at the Battersea Arts Centre from 20th-29th March 2019, and at Camden People’s Theatre from 7-11th May 2019. This series of ‘Notes from the Rehearsal Room’ documents…
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How is the housing crisis connected to poor service? And other questions I tried to answer on Twitter today
Another day, another Twitter row. Today I found myself embroiled in an argument about towels that, as often happens online, got way out of hand very, very quickly. It began (prepare for the least dramatic story of all time) when a woman named Holly tweeted a company called Handy, complaining that her cleaner (a contractor…
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But, Andrew Adonis, I don’t want to work hard
Over on Twitter, if you move in academic circles, you’ll almost certainly have seen a whole load of controversy over some tweets that Andrew Adonis (the former Labour politician) sent out about the state of Higher Education. To summarise: He is upset that academics have ‘three months off’ over the summer. He thinks there should…
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Estate: A Reverie, Screening and Discussion
The University of Exeter Drama Department is hosting a free screening of Fugitive Images’ film Estate: A Reverie, please see below for details — and please share with friends and colleagues, especially those in the Devon area, who might be interested. Estate: A Reverie A film directed by Andrea Luka Zimmerman, produced by Fugitive Images Screening…
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Some Thoughts on Brexit
I am still working through my reaction to the results of the UK’s Brexit referendum. The overwhelming polemic in the aftermath, coupled with the near-hysteria during the build-up, make calm, rational, nuanced thought difficult. This is not a straightforward problem and there won’t be a straightforward solution. Those of us who voted remain are struggling to…
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On Refugees, Lisa McKenzie and the Problem with Writing
The problem with writing, like the problem with speaking, is that words are limited. However articulate we are; however learned, there are only so many words, and only so many ways they can be strung together. As academics, we spend torturous hours agonising over our prose. And although we are constantly subject to accusations of…
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Thoughts on War Memorial Desecration
I never wanted the post I recently wrote on the MP child abuse scandal to ignite a debate about the sanctity of war memorials. Child abuse is too important. There are rarely any ethically watertight, black and white issues on which we can all agree. Surely, I thought, if we can rally around anything we…
Katie Beswick 