NOT WORKING [September 2020]

‘Might be about my job, or your job.
Might be about essential work.
Might be about Marx, and capitalism and alienation.
Might be about crises and pandemics and preparing differently, I guess.
Might be about revolution and liberation and changing the world.
Might just be about staying in bed.‘

(note: trailer was made on my phone because Covid shut the library lol don’t come at me for the edit)

NOT WORKING is a lazy attempt to consider the status, culture and abolition of ‘work’.

In the context of the Covid-19 pandemic and a summer of lockdown followed by my own reluctant return to work, I wanted to explore what ‘work’ means to me and ‘us’. I and others had felt a shift in how the nation, government and media discussed jobs and labour at this time, as well as of course experiencing halts to our own jobs, working from home, or redundancy.

NOT WORKING was commissioned by New Adelphi Theatre with The Liam Byrne Award, and was performed as part of Arrival Festival 2020.

The performance was double live-streamed simultaneously on YouTube and Instagram Live. Below is a version where these two streams are edited together with the text.