This is London October 2026 - Flipbook - Page 28
THE STORY
National Theatre
I’d love to say that the clacking of
typewriters, the chain smoking, the
pressure to ‘get the story’ in a newsroom
were the focus of Tracey Scott Wilson’s
play. But it is set in a later period – just
after the turn of this century – when
technology had moved along somewhat.
Instead, Clint Dyer’s production has a
balletic quality, where brightly coloured
microphones are jabbed at interviewees in
sharp attempts to wrest a comment from
them and the desks and chairs of a
journalist’s life either confront each other or
are regularly spun away to allow for more
active scenes of sleuthing and argument.
Is a news hound a bit like a detective?
Certainly in drama – and we all know the
instances when real detective work exposed
scandals such as Watergate or the cover up
by the Catholic church of child abuse by
the clergy in Boston. In ‘The Story’ we see
snippets of a single violent act, committed
by a person of colour against a white man.
We know nothing but what we hear from
the man’s wife and, thereafter, what all the
journalists hear. Who is the murderer?
Chief amongst these protagonists is
Yvonne (Letitia Wright), a young,
supremely confident Black woman who
has studied at Harvard, wears a suit and
finds being confined to a small magazine
subsection of the newspaper she works
for demeaning. Her boss, older woman
Pat (the excellent Lorraine Toussaint) has
fought tooth and nail for decades just to
have a voice on the majority white paper.
Pat rules the magazine staff with an iron
rod and sends Yvonne to write about
youth and community centres in the
poorer parts of town. It is all grindingly
undermining, apparently – until the story
about the Black on White murder takes
over the popular imagination and theories
begin to swirl around the journalists like
so many strands in a thriller.
And ‘The Story’ is thrilling. Quick
overlapping scenes and taut dialogue
combine to make the play feel like a
movie. Racial tensions are subtly
interwoven with gender issues and the
gritty realities of the ongoing civil rights
movement in the US are peeled back like
the layers of an onion. Sometimes we
think we have come a long way; there are
jokes in the dialogue which caused a
metropolitan audience to gasp on opening
night. Other times Scott Wilson’s play
causes us to look carefully at our own
attitudes and prejudices.
In the end, the complexities of human
behaviour, whether enacted by men or
women or black or white people are
delivered in an especially raw and
unsettling denouement. If the first half of
the evening is all excitement and drive
towards the truth, then the second half is a
maelstrom of emotion with a daunting
lack of clarity. We watch detective dramas
to feel the satisfaction of a clear resolution
to a mystery. A journalist aims to present
us with a similar reward for reading their
story. Except that sometimes, there is no
real resolution, nothing in black and white
– only grey?
Sue Webster
WORLD BALLET DAY
World Ballet Day returns on Thursday
29 October with filmed content from
ballet companies around the world
available to watch online. The Royal
Ballet are to present a three-hour
livestream, taking audiences inside the
rehearsal room to explore the stories of
how teaching and coaching bring ballet
to life.
Photo: Anrej Uspenski
Photo: Feruza Afewerki
Lorraine Toussaint and Ashley Thomas.
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Through rehearsal and conversation,
the livestream will explore the
transmission of knowledge through
training and coaching, and how
choreography is coached and passed on
to new generations, revealing the central
role that teachers and ballet répétiteurs
play in preserving the art form. Drawing
on their personal experiences of working
with choreographers past and present,
coaches play an essential role in the
rehearsal journey, not only in staging
ballets but also in guiding artists and
helping to ensure works are performed
as originally intended.
By aligning steps, technique and
artistry with knowledge and memories
that often span decades, they continue
the vital tradition of sharing and passing
on ballet to the next generation.
T H I S I S L O N D O N M A G A Z I N E • T H I S I S L O N D O N O N L I N E • w w w. t i l . c o m • @ t h i s i s l o n d o n m a g
