The views in this article represent GRILLS co-directors Chloe Christian and Olivia Dowd, and are not endorsed by or reflective of Entertainment Focus
GRILLS, a new show that headlines at the 30th anniversary Camden Roar festival until 22 June, unearths critical LGBTQ+ history where a vibrant community blossomed at the Camden Lesbian Centre & Black Lesbian Group (CLCBLG).
A textured show, weaving the past and the present, the analogue & the digital, and the joys & frustrations of queer community, GRILLS confronts the parallels of the 80s and 2024, including the rise of fascism, the policing of LGBTQIA+ rights, and the continuous closing of essential community spaces.
I caught up with co-directors Chloe Christian and Olivia Dowd on the show's creation and what it hopes to achieve.
Where did inspiration for the play come from?
We came across a video that GalDem did with Levi’s and Joy Yamusangie back in 2019 about the Camden Lesbian Centre and Black Lesbian Group. Growing up in Camden and living there in our adulthood as queers we were amazed we’d never heard of it so inevitably wanted to know more. The fact the archive was in Glasgow, 400 miles away, riled us. It made us question what happens when we don’t have access to our history and the queer elder mentors we crave. It made us ask, whose histories are preserved and shared?
So we went to the Glasgow Women’s Library and delved into the archive, what was saved. When we were there we tried to capture as much as possible. We then brought it all to an R&D and asked the cast to explore it themselves and choose the things that interested them. Once we had these areas of interest (events, characters, context) we started to improv around them, imagining the things that we didn’t know as well as what we did and then eventually started joining the dots and weaving a narrative. Of course we couldn’t help but draw parallels to the current moment, so we started to thread in a contemporary narrative too which includes these archivists commenting on what they’re finding just as we were.
Tell me about the space that the play is staged in and how this relates to the play – or even theatre sector – are there enough LGBTQ+ arts spaces?
We are incredibly grateful to be returning to Camden People’s Theatre, who work hard to champion a diverse range of productions, for as many artists as possible, at a diverse range of career points. Sadly however, around 60% of LGBTQ+ specific venues in the city have closed since 2002 and in the past year it feels like doors have been closing at an alarming rate.
Physical spaces to gather are fundamental to human existence. It’s brilliant that social media can make LGBTQIA+ folks feel a sense of belonging but if we don’t have space to come together, talk, listen, dance, protest, be seen and feel safe, then we will not only continue to be marginalised in our personal lives, within our families, places of work and public spaces but also run the risk of polarising ourselves too.
A lot of organisers are tired and burnt out and with London’s rental costs getting more and more unattainable it is likely that the community will be increasingly isolated and eventually forced out of the city…and the cycle of gentrification will continue.
Why is it so important to tell this story now?
The closing of LGBTQIA+ spaces is even more dire for lesbian venues, with only a tiny number of dedicated lesbian bars left in London. Yet lesbian nights and culture are on the rise. Recently a tapas and lesbian-specific pop-up bar, La Camionera, went viral because of its queues round the block – supposedly word spread in queer whatsapp groups. In the same week, a private members lesbian bar named L Community launched and was rightly criticised for its trans exclusionary policy. And the RVT, one of the more accessible spaces, has disappointingly closed after not standing by its performers’ call for solidarity with Palestine.
In our exploration of the CLCBLG archive, we also found examples of institutionalised racism and a constitution that flip-flopped between accepting “women born as women” and excluding “constructed females.” Seeing even a snippet of their debates around this, between redactions, photographs, and hand-scribbled notes, you have to wonder—where would these conversations be now if this centre had continued to exist? Some of the most radical protests for queer rights in the 80s and 90s were thanks to lesbians. We are facing a nationwide rollback of the Gender Recognition Act, Section 28 style gender and sex education policing, and public claims from our Secretary of State for Business and Trade—Kemi Badenoch—that the UK has not profited from slavery or colonialism. If this is where we are now, where would we be if this centre had continued to thrive? If we had continued to have a space to organise?
What can people learn from GRILLS and the lessons from Lesbian and Queer history?
I think we’re hoping to find a balance between celebration and critique, on both a micro and macro level. We don’t know many of the individuals involved in the centre which I think speaks for itself but we do know some of the policies they had, the letters exchanged with the council and other orgs/individuals and fights they were fighting. There was clearly graft and care in some places, and discrimination and in-fighting elsewhere. If the centre hadn’t closed perhaps the latter could have been resolved, perhaps we wouldn’t be in the place we are today where there is such toxicity aimed at trans people and perhaps we would know the individuals and have healthy, mentoring relationships with them that so many of us crave. Or perhaps we could have learned that ‘the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house’ and would have been further ahead with creating new, robust, caring structures.
Why is there a Glasgow connection in the play?
Once the Camden Lesbian Centre and Black Lesbian Group closed, the archive was moved to the Lesbian Archive London. Then when that also closed due to yet more funding cuts, it was moved to the Glasgow Women’s Library.
How do analogue and digital elements combine and why is this important in the storytelling?
Through our sound, set and costume design, we tried to nod to the idea of loss of texture from our reliance on digital connection.
When we visited the Glasgow Women’s Library, we discovered terminology considered contemporary (such as intersectionality, men who have sex with men, and Women of Colour) used casually. There are often suggestions that these concepts are politically vogue, and this results from the invisibility of histories such as these. While looking at the archive, it all felt so tangible. Thirty years ago, for a whole decade, there was a building where you could sit with a cup of tea, play pool, read a book, and eat a free lunch while talking about radical inclusivity to others who shared your experience. Now, 30 years later, we were holding physical papers passed from hand to hand, telling us there was a building in North London full of friends. Communicating this now would be a seamless click, but we no longer have the free tea, the pool table, or the place to go where countless had been before you. There is greater clarity of communication in a digital world, but there is also less texture, less quality.
With the rise of loneliness often cited as a global pandemic, despite the rise of digital connection, the need for physical contact with our communities seems clear. But can the same be true for objects? For buildings? For sound? The joy we felt in the archive at being able to touch these objects from the past got me thinking: is the closing of cultural and community venues for marginalised communities a kind of historical and sensory deprivation?
Who are the team of cast and crew involved in this production?
Our Cast consists of Ishmael Kirby, Jaye Bullen, India Jean-Jacques and Olivia Dowd. Our Crew consists of Chloe Christian (Director), Regina Agard-Brathwaite (Producer), Raf Alero (Sound Design), Cheng Keng (Lighting Design), Cara Evans (Set & Costume Design), Daniel Roach-Williams (Technical Stage Manager), Jamine Meara-Wall (Production Manager) Nina Mdwaba (Dramatherapist).
GRILLS will be at Camden People's Theatre as part of CPT's 30th Anniversary Camden Roar Festival from 4th – 22nd June. Tickets and accessibility information can be found at: https://cptheatre.co.uk/whatson/grills
