When Kwame Kwei-Armah took over the Young Vic a ‘Black Lives Matter’ sign was strapped to the front of the building. One of BLM’s aims is the overthrow of capitalism and it’s widely assumed in theatreland that Kwame, who is great fun to meet, has embraced this goal by adjusting the Young Vic’s pay structures so that he earns no more than the bar staff and the cleaners. Happily the pay cut seems not to have affected his mood, and last weekend he was fizzing with anticipation as he hosted the Young Vic’s 50th birthday gala.
‘We’re in the house. Make some noise,’ he cried. ‘Shake off the cobwebs!’
He introduced a medley of performances by ‘artists, thinkers, academics and musicians’. And he added a health warning: ‘The scripts arrived this week. We just wanted it to pop up and fill the space.’
A deaf girl hooked up online with boys who insisted on performing sign language naked.
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