In 2021, the not-for-profit play Grenfell: Worth Engineering – Scenes from the Grenfell Inquiry ran on the Tabernacle in Notting Hill, west London, then on the Birmingham Rep. It was a verbatim dramatisation of testimony from the Grenfell Tower inquiry. A efficiency from the Tabernacle is televised right here in two components, with the simplified title of Grenfell (Channel 4). Jon Snow introduces it with a brief and devastating rationalization of why this play exists. He recollects assembly 12-year-old Firdaws Hashim two months earlier than the fireplace, when he chaired a colleges essay competitors, which she received. She died within the fireplace, alongside together with her dad and mom and two brothers. The hope, says Snow, is that nothing like it will ever occur once more.
After seeing this grotesque account of buck-passing and repeated denials of company culpability, I'm not certain that hope is what we're left with. It has been 5 years for the reason that Grenfell fireplace. It's price watching this manufacturing whereas remembering that also now, no felony fees have been introduced. Throughout the Jubilee celebrations, the group group Justice4Grenfell laid out a road celebration desk within the shadow of the tower, inscribing the plates with the names of the victims and the phrases, “72 lifeless. And nonetheless no arrests? How come?”
When the play was first introduced, however earlier than it had been carried out, there was debate on-line over whether or not it was acceptable to “dramatise” the tragedy, and whether or not it might be a case of white, middle-class luvvies appropriating the horrible occasions of that night time for his or her artwork. However this isn't a dramatisation a lot as a fastidiously chosen number of actual proof, designed to inform the story of what occurred and counsel a number of the many the explanation why. It's, in fact, about poverty and race. Many of the victims have been working-class folks of color dwelling in social housing in one of many richest components of the nation.
The play is extremely procedural. This can be a story advised in acronyms, codes and time stamps. Barristers seek advice from witness statements, memos, telephone transcripts, CCTV, flowcharts and emails, and present them on display screen. However this technical method is just not onerous to observe, and offers an immersive really feel. The one reminders that this can be a play, not scenes from the inquiry, are the occasional pictures of an viewers watching in rapt silence.
Part one of many inquiry started in Might 2018 and led to December that 12 months. It aimed to offer a factual narrative of what occurred and begins with accounts given by members of the fireplace service. An actor performs the primary firefighter to enter the tower, as he describes confusion on the night time, the choices he made and why. A management room officer talks of “one thing completely totally different from what had ever occurred earlier than”, and describes how lengthy it took for the “keep put” recommendation to be modified to inform folks to go away.
It's harrowing from begin to end, although the explanations for this shift and evolve. The proof given throughout section two of the inquiry comes from the company aspect: the architects and the contractors. A flowchart, explaining the totally different companies concerned within the refurbishment of Grenfell completed only a 12 months earlier than the fireplace, is beneficial, if solely to maintain monitor of the outrageous abdication of duty and blame-shifting that happens.
This can be a litany of damning indictments, and the success of this play is perhaps in making the broader public conscious of the egregious failures of the numerous our bodies concerned within the tower’s refurbishment. The cladding was seen as an aesthetic selection, a approach of creating Seventies social housing look “nicer”. The architectural agency that received the contract, Studio E, had no expertise on high-rise residential buildings, and one of many architects admits to being “a bit inexperienced on course of and technicality” in an e mail proven on display screen.
Everybody passes duty to a different division. Prices are lower and cash saved. There are not any sprinklers put in, and a declare is made that the cladding supplies used have been “inert and wouldn't burn in any respect”, regardless of heavy proof on the contrary. A resident who expresses concern over fireplace security is dismissed as “a identified troublemaker”. Once more, these are verbatim accounts from the inquiry itself. There isn't any dramatisation required, simply an modifying that clarifies what the general public has been advised. You wish to scream. However crucially, you need motion. Seventy two lifeless and nonetheless no arrests? How come?
Episode two of Grenfell is on Channel 4, 13 June, 11.05pm
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