Reviews OWE & Fringe Published 20 October 2011

Uprising

The Albany ⋄ Tuesday 11th - Friday 14th October, 2011

Growing up on the frontline.

Daniel B. Yates

You may recall a shuddering low-point in the media coverage of the recent London riots, an “interview” with Darcus Howe (although to call it that is to offend the very principle of dialogism) by sallow vortex of hairspray and careerism BBC anchor Fiona Armstrong. Watching Howe struggle for analytical poise against the human newsticker Armstrong, was a barbarous vision on two counts. An erudite old man with first-hand historical knowledge of events, being battered senseless by a crazed sub-Paxman should offend anyone with a belief in civilisation. Secondly, it crystallised a deep impotence in an establishment media, which upon suddenly finding itself with a pressing hunger for authentic voices, had no idea where to find them, and when it did, the prevailing media politics made sure it had even less of an idea how to listen.

Ahead of Gillian Slovo and Nick Kent’s verbatim offering at the Tricycle, it’s in this latent space of mediation that Uprising appears. Alex Wheatle’s socio-biographical account of growing up in care and coming of age amidst the Brixton riots in 1981 comes at us post-fact, to answer to Armstrong’s feeble wheedling; “You are not a stranger to riots yourself, I understand, are you? You have taken part in them yourself”, with a resounding and uncomplicated “Yes.”

Tonight our demonic looter stands on a simple stage with two chairs and a backdrop of a neon window, smiling and open handed. Receiving his MBE for services to literature in 2008, Wheatle cuts a pudgily approachable figure, avuncular but without authority, indeed, you can still perhaps discern the kid who was shunted around social services care in Surrey of the 1970s; the slight air of neediness, the open-hearted willingness to be liked. That is until he breaks into song, acapella rootsy renditions of tunes culled from his time as Yardman Irie, mic man on the Brixton club and soundsystem scene, a touch rusty perhaps, but admirably felt. And indeed this is where his artistry gestates.  Uprising is in essence a Künstlerroman,  how, in the lyrical flow of the encounter, Wheatle tried to make sense of sexuality and patriarchy with his first lyrics “how she belly get fat”, whisking rhymes on the spot when an underage girl is dragged from a dance, and later coming to authors like C.L.R. James and Chester Himes.

A muscular and energetic performer, Wheatle becomes truly animated when talking of the Brixton of his teens, specifically the area around Railton Road nicknamed the Frontline, against which Wheatle was warned, and where he was swiftly enrolled as a shotter or dealer. This was the Brixton Howe once called “a working-class black oasis of revolt and anger”, where patois rang out over the broken concrete, yards blaring sound systems, bookshops, the smell of herb, a subaltern culture of the street that still peeks through in some parts of London. Wheatle paints for us the forerunner of the postcode, when postcode is less indexical of geographical desirability than its opposite, the province of kids where Estate Agents fear to tread, the dark undesirable zones far from our capital’s theatres.

It was here that the Brixton riots of 1981 broke out, in prevailing social and economic conditions that Wheatle is quick to point out, bear stark similarity to those of today. His account is forthright and plainly spoken. “Defend the frontline” was the order of the day, a mixture of anger and circumstance, heroic glamour and necessity. As he repeats the word “looting” we are steered away from any nostalgia, as if those struggles of the past were any more noble, any less messy. If social unrest can constitute a vacuum of meaning, here Wheatle breathes every day life into the events. The parties that briefly put the touts who flogged cheap cigs out of business, as the cartons nicked from the offie were cracked. An image of girls waggling their fingers in the faces of policeman, resplendent in stolen jewellery. Wheatle himself got himself 8 months, “the magistrate didn’t even look at me”. “They were giving out a lot of justice” he goes on, and on that final word, the evening’s first and only note of bitterness clouds his generous face.

Railton Road is bisected both by Shakespeare Road and Marcus Garvey Way, the latter named in the late 80s by the progressive Lambeth council, supported by Timothy West and Frances De La Tour amongst others in their losing fight against Thatcher’s conservative government. “No one remember ole Marcus Garvey” sang Burning Spear, which may or may not be true today. But what we have in figures like Wheatle is the living tradition of British storytelling, zoetic and poetic, an arrow to the recent past.

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Daniel B. Yates

Educated by the state, at LSE and Goldsmiths, Daniel co-founded Exeunt in late 2010. The Guardian has characterised his work as “breaking with critical tradition” while his writing on live culture &c has appeared in TimeOut London, i-D Magazine, Vice Magazine, and elsewhere. He lives and works in London E8, and is pleasant.

Uprising Show Info


Directed by Jatinder Verma

Written by Alex Wheatle

Cast includes Alex Wheatle

Link http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/search/ref=sr_tc_2_0?rh=i%3Astripbooks%2Ck%3AAlex+Wheatle&keywords=Alex+Wheatle&ie=UTF8&qid=1319123927&sr=8-2-ent&field-contributor_id=B000AR89K6

Running Time 50mins

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