Debates
Hydrocracker makes work engaging with live contemporary issues and the big questions facing our societies in the near future. We collaborate with thinkers, activists and organisers to inform our work and integrate debates and discussions into our participant’s experience of our work.
Below are some of the debates we’ve held.
Hopes and Fears for the NHS
The World Transformed (2017)
Renowned playwright and actor Steph Street (The Reluctant Fundamentalist for National Youth Theatre and The Beautiful Forevers at National Theatre) joined the Hydrocracker creative team to work with a group of NHS workers, thinkers and activists to explore their thoughts, fears and hopes for the NHS.
This was the start of our work on a new thought-provoking piece for 2021, entitled Who Cares (previous working title The Choice). The debate was part of The World Transformed's Brighton 2017 event - a week-long multi-venue festival of politics, art, music and culture running alongside the 2017 UK Labour Party Conference.
Complicity and the Ethics of Undercover Security
Brighton Festival (2016)
Complicity and the Ethics of Undercover Security debate was held as part of Brighton Festival’s Debate Programme in response to Hydrocracker and Blast Theory’s Operation Black Antler.
As an immersive theatre piece that invited audience members to enter the murky world of undercover surveillance and question the morality of state-sanctioned spying, OPERATION BLACK ANTLER asked if the state is justified in the ways it protects its citizens - in particular, to what extent is it justified in getting its agents – the police and security services – to lie in order to do their job?
These issues generated by the work, were debated by a panel of speakers and a packed audience at The Old Courtroom, Brighton.
Chaired by Guardian columnist Polly Toynbee, the panel featured Policy Officer at Liberty, Silkie Carlo; Reader in Security at the University of Leicester, Dr. Jon Moran ; Senior Lecturer in Social Psychology at the University of Brighton, Dr. Chris Cocking and; Blast Theory artist and co-creator of Operation Black Antler, Matt Adams.
Complicity Conference
Brighton Festival (2015)
In 2015 the University of Brighton invited Artistic Director Jem Wall to speak alongside speakers Tom Hickey, Robert Fine and Thomas Docherty, at its two-day Complicity Conference using Hydrocracker's research on its work Operation Black Antler.
The Understanding Conflict Research Cluster explored issues of complicity in terms both of practice and of theorisation relating issues to a wide range of people working in and studying, among other areas, cultural studies, philosophy, political theory, media studies, photography, journalism and post-colonialism, health studies and the NHS, queer theory, women's studies and women and the family.
Hydrocracker spoke to the motion: "If we know ‘there is something rotten’ in our society; if we know it is being run by and for the 1%, then how do we live without being complicit ? Can theatre - any art - offer an alternative to complicity and compliance?”
The Politics of Writing Politics in Plays
New Writing South (2014)
As a company that has been lauded for making ‘political work with a purpose’ (The Guardian) Hydrocracker has developed a practice that uses text and performance at the heart of its immersive work.
New Writing South's Industry Day for playwrights focussed on “The Politics of Writing Politics in Plays”, with David Edgar as its keynote speaker and Hydrocracker’ AD Jem Wall and Creative Producer Judith Hibberd alongside members of the National Theatre, Soho Theatre, and The Royal Court.
Over thirty playwrights joined a wide ranging discussion as to what constitutes Political Theatre with Hydrocracker offering practical advice as part of the afternoon sessions.
Understanding Conflict
College of Arts and Humanities, Grand Parade, University of Brighton (2014)
Hydrocracker’s Jem Wall and Neil Fleming were invited to speak at The Brighton 'Grand Hotel' Bombing: History, Memory & Political Theatre symposium Wednesday 15th - Thursday 16th October 2014, commemorating the 30th anniversary of the IRA bombing of the Grand Hotel in Brighton.
Other speakers were: Sarah Jane Dickenson, playwright/researcher, Drama department at the University of Hull, UK; Stephen Hopkins, Lecturer in Politics in the Department of Politics and International Relations University of Leicester; Dr. Lesley Lelourec, Senior Lecturer & member of the Centre for Irish Studies at the Université de Rennes; Julie Everton & Josie Melia, playwrights and authors of Wildspark Theatre’s: The Bombing of the Grand Hotel; Paula McFetrish, Artistic Director of Belfast based theatre company Kabosh and David Wybrow director of the Cockpit Theatre, London.