The pandemic has had a very different impact on communities and Black people are four more times likely to die from Covid-19 according to Public Health England figures. Talawa, the UK's most successful black theatre company,is creating a series of six short theatre pieces which will explore what happened, what has been learned and document the contribution Black workers have made at the front line. To this end they are speaking to Black people on the front line - on the buses, in supermarkets, teachers, teaching assistants and delivery drivers - some from its own base in Croydon, but also from across the UK. The interviews are intended to allow these workers to share their experiences and voice their concerns and hopes for the future and based on these artists will be give freedom to use the testimonies to create a dramatised work. All this will take time and the results will not be available until the autumn but it will be a task worth undertaking.
Wccording to Michael Buffington, Talawa's artistic director, were it not for Covid 19 lives would have been dominated by Brexit and the Windrush scandal.
"Covid 19 has exposed the fact that those people most affected by these hostilities are theones who are keeping the country alive, sustained and functioning," he said. "We want to geher and share these poweful stories from the front line to ensure that these contributions by Black British people cannot be erased from the historical record."
William Russell
Photograph: Sanaa Abstract