All the world’s a stage: Immediate Theatre is out to change young people’s lives
And…action! Budding filmmakers take to the streets. Photo: Immediate Theatre
How best to get disadvantaged youth in deprived parts of the borough to engage with complex and sensitive topics such as food banks, domestic violence and sexual health?
Jo Carter thinks she knows the answer, and she isn’t keeping it to herself. Carter is the founder of Immediate Theatre, a charity that for 18 years has been using drama to arm the youth of Hackney with skills that will hopefully improve their lives.
“What we want to do is get young people to express their ideas and voice their opinions,” says Carter, who founded the charity from a bedsit 18 years ago.
It started when Carter, disillusioned at how mainstream theatre seemed to operate in social isolation, decided to go it alone. “I wanted to make theatre where I lived, helping people to explore the process of change in a safe environment,” she says.
This process of change means guiding and informing those most likely to shape the future direction of society – the young. And doing so on their home turf.
Estate-based youth theatres
Immediate’s long-running Estate Based Youth Theatres (EBYT) operate in places such as the Nightingale Estate, the Huddleston Centre in Clapton and Woodberry Down. They act like youth centres but focus on drama and are open to children aged 8–13.
“What’s unusual about us is that we do work in areas of quite high deprivation and we sustain those projects, so we don’t go in and do a quick project and then run away,” says Carter.
Bianca, 25, has been with Immediate since she was aged 14, attending weekly drama workshops at the Parkside Youth Centre at
Woodberry Down. “Instead of staying at home, young people on estates can come along and do a project with us,” says Bianca, who is now a Peer Facilitator, which means she is on the operational side of the drama workshops.
“We might have a six week block to do a project which would then lead up to a show. At the moment I’m running my own project and and getting the kids to rehearse, devise bits, come up with ideas and do filming and stuff like that.”
The shows that Immediate stages take grown up issues that affect the young actors’ lives and explore them more fully. In February at Chats Palace, a cast of Hackney residents performed in Hood, a play about food poverty with a modern day hero, Robyn Hood. Before that there was a production of A Letter to Lacey, about domestic abuse.
Bianca joins in with most of the productions, and loves being part of a theatre company that puts on shows. But it’s the educational aspect of the charity’s work where she sees her long term future. Some of the outreach programmes she has been involved with include Meet the Parents, where young parents like herself visit schools to talk about sexual health, and a road safety tour of schools called Now You See Me.
These are programmes that use drama to make their points: for a workshop on bullying Bianca helped devise a piece which they then took into schools for the students to interact with and change.
Challenges ahead
The year-long Peer Facilitator programme Bianca is now on is open to NEETs (young people not in education, employment or training) and could potentially lead to part-time employment with Immediate – although the charity’s recent restructure following funding cuts from Hackney Council means this is far from certain.
Carter this year had to downsize Immediate because of the cuts, moving to a new headquarters at the Arcola Theatre and asking staff to work fewer hours. What effect this will have in the long run is unclear, but Carter assures me that much of Immediate’s work won’t be affected.
“I feel part of what we do is to help people to engage their imaginations in exploring the world around them,” says Carter, who seems energised by the challenge ahead.
“We actually build relationships, work with young people over a period of years and sustain relationships. It’s about being part of something that’s ongoing and you can grow with.”