Dictating to the Estate uses documentary evidence to tell a story of everyday heroism and scandalous political neglect
While the nation commences its parties for the Queen’s Jubilee this weekend, there is another far starker moment being marked in one corner of west London: the approach of the fifth anniversary of the catastrophe that took 72 lives on the night of 14 June 2017 inside the Grenfell Tower.
Playwright Nathaniel McBride brings his site-specific documentary drama, Dictating to the Estate, to the Maxilla Social Club in Kensington, which stands 200 metres from the site of the tower and became a collection point for donations in 2017. Its two-week staging will coincide with the fifth anniversary and follows another recent verbatim drama, Grenfell: Value Engineering, performed close to the tower but in far wealthier surroundings. It is a reminder of this borough’s enormous divide between rich and poor and McBride says the venue was chosen with the aim of drawing audiences “who would not normally attend a theatre play”.
