The hard-hitting Mad Blud scraps scripts in exchange for mp3 players - director and cast explain all (From East London and West Essex Guardian Series)

The hard-hitting Mad Blud scraps scripts in exchange for mp3 players - director and cast explain all

12:51pm Thursday 12th May 2011 in Highlights By George Nott

In verbatim theatre, plays are constructed using the precise responses of people interviewed about a particular subject. Recorded voice delivery takes this concept a step further, whereby the actual interview recordings are played to the actors as they perform.

Mad Blud: A London Story, an updated exploration of knife crime in the capital, uses the latter technique to hard-hitting and sometimes uncomfortable effect.

But the technique requires actors to master a difficult and uninstinctive skill, which takes hours of interviewing and editing and relies on a small piece of technology that can easily fail.

Two questions spring to mind: how is it done and why bother?

The how begins with tracking down the right subjects. For Mad Blud, director Philip Osment and his team met with friends, families, victims, neighbours, teachers, police and people on the street, recording their experiences of knife culture. The results include a young man fresh from prison, a family angry at the police and press after their son was killed in a stabbing incident and community elders bemused by the knife crime epidemic.

From hours of sound files, key excerpts are taken, edited and re-edited to form a single piece of theatre.

This recording is put onto a number of mp3 players, one for each member of the cast. Now the tricky bit. The actors, while listening to the recording must repeat what they have just heard – verbatim.

“A lot of listening has to go on for the actors to get accuracy,“ explains Philip. “They have to absolutely find the voice, not the actors version of it and deliver it just as they hear it. They act more as mediums for the responses.

“It’s a tough technique. They go into a trance like state, often they don’t remember what they’ve just said, so intent they are on getting it right.“

A technique that took some mastering for actor Dwayne Hutchinson. “It is a really different way of working,“ says the 23-year-old. “It’s hard getting all the little inaudible mumbles we use in normal conversations. But without them it would change the whole context and mood of what is being said.

“You have to talk and listen at the same time – it’s a weird feeling.“

And there’s always the matter of the mp3 players. “We’ve had batteries run out in rehearsals but we’ve troubleshooted those scenarios,“ says Dwayne. “But it’s not like something going wrong in the middle of a trapeze act – not quite anyway.“

The why is perhaps more important. It’s all about authenticity, explains Philip.

“There is always a tendency to editorialise, to make it what you think it should be rather than what it actually is. If you keep it true then it has authenticity.

“It can be frustrating. People don’t always say what you might want them to but it’s a case of having lemons and making lemonade.

“It pays off when the audience are there with their jaws hanging open. They can’t believe it because it is so them. It speaks as they speak.“

But this ’why’ is probably best answered from a theatre seat. Hearing these shocking true stories with unblinking and non-judgmental immediacy makes for a very moving performance.

Mad Blud: A London Story is at Theatre Royal Stratford East from May 18 to 28 at 7.30pm with matinees on May 20 at 2pm and May 28 at 3pm. Details: 020 8534 0310