Folk The Police™️ is a tale of friendship, prejudice and radically different but politically aligned music genres:
Hip-Hop and Folk.
Alfie considers himself a man’s man, an independent, ‘says it like it is’ ex-miner. He is also a very sick man, and with his health rapidly deteriorating is forced to move away from his Geordie roots to live with estranged daughter Angela and her millennial activist teenager, Kayla.
A clash between those forging a brighter tomorrow and those wanting to return to the glory days of yesterday is looming, and rapidly threatens to destabilise the entire household. But when Alfie meets Kayla’s boyfriend Marcus, their shared passion for music throws them into a new reality that neither is quite prepared for.
Where it all began
Growing up in the north east as the son of a folk singer, I thought everyone was used to family gatherings turning into impromptu jamming sessions. Having an older cousin, with whom I would swap mix tapes – mine being grunge, his being hip hop – I developed a fairly eclectic taste.
A child of the early 80s, I remember vaguely the carnage that beset my region as the pits shut. I’ve been regaled with the stories of neighbours who were and weren’t on strike, sowing the seeds of disputes that were never reconciled. I remember strongly the damage done and the years it took the region – my region – to recover.
20 years later, I saw The Pitmen Poets were playing in Kings Cross, revisiting the songs of Tommy Armstrong, a little known (outside of the north east) yet prolific poet who documented the difficult time that was 1880s North East England. I found myself listening to those folk songs again, songs I was familiar with but never really listened to properly. The venom of Oakey Strike Evictions, the anger of Blackleg Miner and the humour of In the Bar Room, I reconnected with the music.
It was around this time that Straight Outta Compton was being released, a film about the rise of NWA. Listening again to older hip hop collections I found a synergy between two genres written a century apart.
Different regions, countries and time zones. Still singing about being oppressed by those in control.
The name wrote itself, and the seeds of Folk The Police™ were sown.
Read Through
A selection of photos from the incredibly successful script read through, held at Theatre 503 on 24/6/19.
The characters came alive thanks to an amazing cast and creative team.
A special thanks to:
Hannah Warsame, James Rushbrooke, Carla Kingham, Andrew Seddon
Richard Ward, Kathryn Debbage, Christien Bart-Gittens, Laura Lake Adebisi
Onwards!