Beats & Elements & Camden People’s Theatre release their hip hop theatre production No Milk for the Foxes
Two security guards. One-night shift. Zero hours contracts.
Beats & Elements and Camden People’s Theatre’s 2015 production of No Milk for the Foxes, which explored David Cameron’s England from the perspective of the working class through spoken word, beatboxing and live looping, is set to be released online from Tuesday, 16 June.
Meet Marx, white working-class male from Croydon, and Spaxx, Anglo-Indian from Mitcham. Two security guards, one-night shift, zero hours contracts.
Is it important to aspire to a higher station or better just to accept your lot? As the television monitors buzz in front of them, two friends pass the night shift debating status, class, and milk. Marx is keeping his head down, working hard and praying his contract will be extended. He is saving up to take his girlfriend Gemma on her dream holiday to Tenerife. Sparx just cannot wait to clock off and roll a spliff. Minimum wage with no pension? He has had enough. Today he is leaving. Quitting. Definitely. Although, he said that yesterday…
Through spoken word, humour, live looping and beatbox, No Milk for the Foxes explores Cameron’s England from the perspective of the working class.
As working-class artists themselves, the creators want to challenge representations of class on the modern stage and bring humour and humility to their audiences.
Musician, rapper and theatre maker Conrad Murray said:
“The show is a hip-hop tragicomedy about class, about the inequalities in society. We meet two working class guys working night shift in Croydon on zero hours contracts. From the outside, it is seeming like they are a couple of entitled losers, possibly lazy. But as we go on, we realise that they are products of their generation.
We made the show five years ago, on the eve of David Cameron’s Tories winning the election. The reception from the audience was amazing. During the original run we had many people come up to us to say it inspired them, and even changed their way of thinking about class and theatre.
Amidst the plethora of streamed theatre, we feel like there are not many hip hop theatre shows that explore the lives of the working class. This one is for the people!”
London-based Beats & Elements are made up of Conrad Murray – who directed the acclaimed BAC Beatboxing Academy (where he is the Artistic Director) production of Frankenstein: How To Make a Monster and composed the soundtrack to the recent acclaimed Pilot Theatre production of Crongton Knights – and storyteller, poet, rapper and theatre-maker, Paul Cree, whose credits include performing around the UK at festivals and events, such as Bestival, Latitude, Secret Garden Party, One Taste and Edinburgh Fringe.
No Milk for the Foxes is available at https://www.youtube.com/
