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GRENFELL: SYSTEM FAILURE: Scenes from the Inquiry (Modern Plays)

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In terrifying darkness en route, they stepped on dead bodies but made their way out. Saber, who stayed behind to help less able people, didn’t. In a moment particularly relevant to the present day, we are reminded how the Fire Brigades Union’s warnings of the impact of austerity and reduction in staffing went unheard. Funding cuts meant there were fewer staff in the control room to handle 999 calls the night of the fire, and in some cases, vital information about people who were trapped was not passed on to firefighters on the ground.

The follow-up play to the acclaimed Grenfell: Value Engineering, this new verbatim play is touring three West London venues: The Playground Theatre (18 February – 25 February), The Tabernacle (27 February – 12 March)and Marylebone Theatre (14 March – 26 March), bringing the production closer to the communities affected by the tragedy than previously possible. Following last year's critically acclaimed production Grenfell: Value Engineering, Grenfell: System Failure asks further vital questions raised at the Grenfell Tower Inquiry in the last eighteen months. However the government also pointed the finger at the construction industry and said the building regulations were “sufficiently clear” for “competent professionals” to apply. It insisted that had they been properly followed, a large-scale cladding fire could not have happened. On Tuesday, counsel for the DLUHC, Jason Beer QC, said: “The department is deeply sorry for its past failures in relation to its oversight of the system that regulated safety in the construction and refurbishment of high-rise buildings. It also deeply regrets past failures in relation to the superintendence of the building control bodies.”On Monday, the inquiry heard allegations from the bereaved and survivors of the 14 June 2017 fire that the government may be guilty of a “deliberate cover-up” over the dangers posed by combustible materials and that successive administrations were responsible for “collusion” with the construction industry. It heard MPs had written to the government 21 times, pressing it to tighten building regulations after Lakanal, without success. Governments had shown “an unbridled passion for deregulation”, one of the lawyers representing victims, Stephanie Barwise QC, told the inquiry. Grenfell: System Failure will tour to three West London venues: The Playground Theatre, The Tabernacle and the Marylebone Theatre, bringing the production closer to the communities affected by the tragedy than previously possible. Norton-Taylor said he hoped the play would help “keep the thing alive” in the public consciousness. “The evidence needs to be heard and listened to as much as possible,” he said. “This was totally avoidable, but a reflection of other parts of British society we are still facing now.” Playing Richard Millet QC as the Lead Counsel is Olivier-nominee Ron Cook. Ron is also joined by Derek Elroy (Leslie Thomas QC), Sally Giles (Kate Grange QC), Nicholas Chambers (Adrian Pargeter), Sophie Duval (Sarah Colwell), Tanveer Ghani (Imran Khan), and Shahzad Ali (Hisam Chouchair).

Fire safety is a very subjective subject,” says Brian Martin, a construction professional responsible for government building regulations, speaking at the official inquiry into the Grenfell Tower disaster. The second part of this verbatim theatre work based on the transcripts of the Grenfell Inquiry starts with a trigger warning. The audience is told that some of the evidence is so disturbing that it will be flagged in advance so that people can leave the auditorium if they choose. When we get the warning, just before the interval, no one does. The Grenfell Tower Inquiry into how the tragedy occurred – why it was allowed to occur by hundreds of people – concluded in November 2022, with enough material that Richard Norton-Taylor and Nicolas Kent have been able to construct another devastating verbatim play. Where Grenfell: Value Engineering (2021) left us speechless, System Failure makes us rage. The firefighters never reached the 23rd floor. At 2AM with the fire spreading, they made a decision to try and make their way downstairs. Saber sent his son and wife ahead. Millett told the inquiry: “Each and every one of the risks which eventuated at Grenfell Tower on that night were well known by many and ought to have been known by all.”This limited season is brought to the stage by the creative team responsible for Grenfell: Value Engineering at The Tabernacle and Birmingham Repertory Theatre in 2021 and on Channel 4 in 2022, The Stephen Lawrence Inquiry – The Colour of Justice at the Tricycle Theatre, the National Theatre, in the West End and on BBC TV, and the Olivier Award-winning Saville Inquiry play, Bloody Sunday. The new piece will run at the Playground Theatre (18 February to 25 February), The Tabernacle (27 February to 12 March) and Marylebone Theatre (14 March to 26 March). As Scotland Yard wait for the final report before moving towards potential criminal charges, any trials for offences ranging from corporate manslaughter to fraud may not start before 2025, more than seven years since the disaster, the Guardian understands. Keeping up with the details which emerged across 400 days of evidence at the Grenfell Tower Inquiry was a mammoth task, largely abandoned by the United Kingdom’s media long before proceedings reached their end. Richard Millett KC (Ron Cook), the chief council for the inquiry, concluded that, “each and every one of the deaths that occurred in Grenfell Tower on 14 June 2017 was avoidable.”

As for Arconic, according to The Guardian, “a lawyer representing the firm... said the company was the victim of an agenda. The company considers the sale of the cladding was lawful and permitted by the regulations at the time.” And – just before the interval – after the audience heard the story of the life and death of Mohamed “Saber” Neda, I turned to see the two women sitting behind me openly sobbing. After Millett spoke, Grenfell United, the families group, said the closure of the inquiry, which is not due to produce a report until at least October 2023, was a reminder “that we continue to live our lives knowing the evidence has been uncovered. And yet, there’s no change. No accountability. No charges”. Kent said: “During the run of the previous play in October 2021, there was much pressure from the Grenfell community and audiences for us to complete the story of the final phase of the Grenfell Tower inquiry. This second play focuses on the vital questions of how the cladding/insulation manufacturers, the London fire brigade, government regulators and politicians could have averted this terrible fire, and how they failed the local community in the chaos of its aftermath.”Grenfell: System Failure features set design by Miki Jablkowska and Matt Eagland, lighting design by Matt Eagland, sound and video design by Andy Graham, costume design by Carly Brownbridge, casting by Amy Ball CDG with community liaison from Suresh Grover, and production photography by Beresford Hodge. Adel Chaoui, who lost four members of his family, said: “We knew after phase one of the inquiry [which ended in 2019] why the building went up in flames … There is criminal activity that could have been prosecuted there and then.” Staged a few minutes away from Grenfell Tower, this play drawn from the inquiry into the 2017 inferno that took 72 lives has audience members who experienced the disaster firsthand and have seen accountability avoided for causes and responses. “They’ve got away with it,” a survivor sitting close to me says in the interval."

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