Shereener Browne: actor/producer

Everyone has a story. PlayFight, which will soon be at the Pleasance Theatre (29, 31 May and 1-3 June) bills itself as ‘Intensely moving political theatre exploring the corrosive nature of racism in the school system’. Here the woman who inspired this play, Shereener Browne, talks about turning it into a stage show in a bid to spark change. Interview by Nicola Baird.

PlayFight was inspired by an incident at one-time barrister and newspaper libel checker, Shereener Browne’s son’s school. “The spark of it was my idea but I knew I needed to hand it over to someone and I lucked out in finding writer Christina Alagaratnam. “I’ve seen plays ‘written, directed by and starred in’ by the same person, and they sometimes lack that objectivity which can be crucial,” she says with a laugh that hints at the sort of self-knowledge that saw her leave the law to act and write.

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“The young people call it pivoting,” says Shereener in black-framed glasses and a chic grey and black roll neck as we talk over Zoom. On the wall behind are photos of her three kids and a snap of herself from 1996 in barrister’s legal wig and a gown.

Now she’s the theatre producer of PlayFight, from Orisun, a platform she set up for African and Caribbean creatives to grow. The play moves to the Pleasance, in Islington, at the end of May but it premiered at Deptford Town Hall in November 2021, and last summer (June 2022) was at Theatre Peckham’s inaugural fringe theatre festival.

PlayFight follows the lives of three 15-year-old school students, best friends Kai (Iain Gordon), TJ (Landry Adelard) and Zara (Carla Garratt). The promo info says it’s, “Holding a mirror up to systemic racism within schools, the adultification of Black children, the disproportionately high exclusion rates of Black pupils and the self-suppression of Black male vulnerability.”

Given the high exclusion rates at school for Black Caribbean students and concerns about the way PRU students often then end up in detention at Young Offender Institutions, it’s clear this is going to be a play which needs to be watched. It’s also led to spin-off talks for theatre goers and workshops for school students aged 15-18 years old.

“PlayFight is entirely fiction but at the heart of the idea is this precarious position that we sometimes place all young people, but in particular in this story young black people, in how the world views them in being older than they actually are. That was a phenomenon I’d experienced as a parent, and also as a young person growing up. The story has been wonderfully crafted by Christina – it is a work of fiction, but has very real echoes of young people’s lives, going on now. Because we took a long time researching and developing it, there were lots of black actors and creatives involved in that process, so no doubt a lot of the stories will ring true for those who come and see it,” she says.

‘Why does it happen?’ is the sort of question that Shereener has clearly taken time to think through – she suggests that one factor maybe what we eat, “Because modern day diet is so good, or better than post war diets, children are maturing far younger. They might look like women and men but they are really only 13 or 14 – children – and this presents problems for them, but also for society in how they are treated and viewed,” she adds.

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5 places Shereener Browne loves in Islington

• Right up there has got to be the Hen and Chickens theatre, 109 St Paul’s Road, which hosts a wonderful independent film festival, called Unrestricted View. There’s another lovely pub theatre and community space on Upper Street, the King’s Head, which I’ve visited over the years and saw their alternative Christmas show at the end of last year.
• Screen on the Green, 83 Upper Street is lovely. It’s the only cinema I’ve been to with a bar in the back of the theatre, which suits me! I love that building. Last saw a film there that I was in, Dead on the Vine, I was the lead along with three other actors. The screening was during the Unrestricted View festival 2023.
• I have a love-hate relationship with Highbury Corner Mags (magistrates). In my early years of training as a barrister I was there quite a lot, looking like a rabbit caught in the headlights with some stipendiary magistrate screaming at me from the bench. It’s been etched into my subconsciousness forever more.
• I go to the Almeida and love that they always send discount codes and £10 tickets to forward on to my networks. It’s got a West End buzz. The last thing I saw? Hymn in 2022 which had our patron Danny Sapani in it.
• I’m very excited about the Pleasance, which champions new writing. They’ve been so good to me as a fledgling theatre producer, very nurturing and supportive. I’m going there for the first time this week (May 2023) after the rest of the team started rehearsals, because as the theatre producer I’ve been stuck to my computer, trying to make the numbers add up and get bums on seats. We all really ought to support fringe theatre.

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Theatre life
In addition to her busy professional life, Shereener, 52, is also a passionate theatre goer and makes clear that this show is gripping to watch.  “We think we’ve produced something that entertains as well as educates,” she says. “It’s a bug bear of mine when I go to productions that really hit you over the head with the message! We do want to encourage the adult population to come and see the play and it’s very relevant for parents, carers, teachers, head masters and head mistresses, you name it. When we played at Peckham there were people who had no connection to the story who had stumbled in on it at the festival – for them it was eye-opening.

Of course, getting in the first audiences is a key part of any play’s success. Shereener, who lives in New Cross Gate, Lewisham, says this is still, “tricky in the current climate, because it is a very crowded market and people are getting their content in their living rooms on their phones or whatever device and there’s a significant cohort of the theatre-going community that is still quite slow to come out of their homes and back into the theatre.”

“The West End have these huge budgets and do produce dazzling shows, visually beautiful, which is great, but I’ve seen plays with just a few boxes being moved around which have completely had me from the get go – it’s story telling – and if you can invoke your audiences’ imagination to such an extent where the boxes look like a street in south Africa then you are a magician as far as I’m concerned,” she says.

Forum theatre
Three workshops will be run alongside the play using forum theatre. “Excerpts of the play will be explored with young people aged 15-18-years-old with a trained facilitator and at least one of the actors from the show to help the young people engage with the themes, she says.” It’s to spark conversation and debate, whether it be around the kitchen table or in classrooms with parents, carers, educators about how vulnerable our young people are. I think this regrettably has become more of an issue as we see increased adolescent ill health and low wellbeing. I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to call it a crisis as our mental health services are bursting at the seams. It’s so underfunded and over-subscribed, so a lot of young people are not getting the support they need. I hope that conversation will either start, or be continued or be reinvigorated by this piece.”

As a mum of two teens still at school, aged 18 and 14, and a 20-year-old Shereener is all too aware how their cohort are impacted as much by the theme of the play as by covid.

“Just comparing their experiences to mine – I’m a black woman who grew up in west Yorkshire for my primary school years and early secondary, in a very white environment so although that presented its own difficulties, I think in many ways it was very straightforward.  I think nowadays young people have very many other issues on top of identity, ethnicity and exposure to social media – those things did not complicate my youth – so it makes it all the more difficult and fraught for them.”

Although her children have been supportive, and her “daughter helped out when PlayFight had its premiere in Deptford Town Hall partnered with Goldsmiths (the local university),” Shereener says, “I don’t think she saw the whole thing, it’s quite harrowing and dramatic. My youngest is still too young, as the age recommendation is 15, and he’s 14 so it’s not really for him. I don’t put any pressure on them, if they want to come, they can. It is a work of fiction, but there are times in the play when I think did the writer have a camera in my kitchen? Some of the exchanges are a bit too close to the bone, but that is coincidence and evidence of how good the writing is and how Christina was able to tap into that world, gleaned over the course of many workshops, even though it’s not her world – she’s a young woman of Sri Lankan heritage, in Croydon. She knows it, but she is not of it.”

Now that PlayFight is on at the Pleasance, with its Edinburgh Festival links, Shereener is having to deal with endless questions about where it goes next. She’s not certain herself, saying, “It’s a perfectly formed Edinburgh show, only a three hander and an hour long, but I just don’t know… There’s a lot of comedy, so maybe we’d bill it to ‘come and cry instead of laughing’,” she jokes. Throughout the interview, whatever we discuss, Shereener has a way of making tough topics accessible, ranging from a lack of capacity in CAMHS (child mental health services) to fringe theatre audiences, and she lightens the mood with humour. It makes her great company.

So, here’s wishing the team which has created PlayFight very good luck sparking those conversations that Shereener knows carers, families, teachers and politicians need to have to get the best out of our young people. Enjoy your time educating, enlightening and entertaining Islingtonians.

• PlayFight is at the Pleasance Theatre, Carpenters Mews, N7 for five nights on 29 May & 31 May – 3 June 2023. Tickets available from here
• More info about Orísun Productions from here https://www.orisunproductions.com/
• Orísun Productions will also host two post-show Q&As, giving the audience a chance to ask the cast and crew questions on Wednesday 31 May and Friday 2 June, both at 9.45-10.15pm, with psychologist Laverne Antrobus (31 May) and psychotherapist Anshu Srivastava (2 June).
• There will also be three special workshops for young people aged 15-18 years old inthe daytime during 31 May,1 and 2 June at 3:45 – 5pm. The aim of the workshops is to explore the themes raised in the play using excerpts from PlayFight, in a ‘forum theatre’ method with actors present and will be facilitated by Attic Theatre Company, more information and to sign up at https://www.orisunproductions.com/playfight .

Over to you
If you’d like to nominate someone to be interviewed who grew up, lives or works in Islington, or suggest yourself, please let me know, via nicolabaird dot green at gmail dot com. If you enjoyed this post you might like to look at the A-Z  index, or search by interviewee’s roles or Meet Islingtonians to find friends, neighbours and inspiration. Thanks for stopping by. Nicola

Feedback
From Renske Mann: I’m both impressed and fascinated by this story. Hats off to you and Shereener Browne for featuring her achievements, as a Barrister, playwright/entrepreneur and mother of three children.