Beach boys

Another Saturday afternoon, another dusty hot walk through the tiny streets of James Town, past the lighthouse and to CTC, where I meet Reggie, nervously pacing up and down. He’s a big guy, into his boxing, articulate when leading workshops, but he’s been surprisingly hesitant in front of the camera while taking part in the InterACT! video link project.

A couple of exceptions aside, we’ve now received the video postcards from the UK practitioners taking part in InterACT! and it’s time to start making the second videos from the TfaC facilitators. Reggie is first up – we’d spent a couple of hours in an internet café the day before watching his video from Jacqui Rice at Company of Angels and he’d spent the evening planning what he wants his next video to her to look like.

It’s part of the development of the project that I want the facilitators taking part in it to take more ownership in the making of their videos this time around. The first time I was making a lot of suggestions, guiding them – both to help the participants but also to ensure that each video we made showed a different side of Theatre for a Change. This time I want everyone to think about what they’re going to say, where we’re going to shoot the video, how it’s going to fit together. We’ve talked about storyboarding, about drawing on themes brought up in the video response sent from the UK, about developing and expanding the conversation.

Reggie is keen to feature some of TfaC’s youngest members in his video – the ‘Group of Hope’, so called because their age, 8-12, means they are unlikely to have started doing those things that might put them at risk of sexually transmitted diseases and are thus at an ideal stage to start talking about those issues. We visit Steven’s workshop, although Steven, for some reason hasn’t turned up yet, and Reggie leads some warm ups and interviews some of the kids in their native Ga language.

After a bit, we venture down to the beach next to the fisher folks’ village: pure white sand where tiny half naked kids play in amongst the piles of rubbish and the breaking waves. I’ve never been down this far – have always felt a little intimidated walking into the village as it feels separate from James Town somewhere, private almost, although none of the doors are shut in the little shacks where the incredibly hard-up fishermen and their families live.

Reggie settles himself on a massive fishing net and does his piece, hesitantly, to the camera, troubled by the shouts of kids throwing themselves from the little pier into the water and by a sudden difficulty with the English language that only materialises when the camera is on. He’s still charming though, and silly too – he whips off his shirt right at the start and, as soon as the camera beeps, pretends that we’ve stumbled across him sunbathing and apologises profusely.

The sun is still incredibly strong; it’s one of the hottest days I’ve experienced here so far. We finish with Reggie and I give him some cash to help with his travel for the project – a tiny amount but really important for someone who chose to give up his other, paying job to concentrate on Theatre for a Change. We finish the last bit of video and I stumble off to meet the next two facilitators.

Forster and Amanda, younger, more articulate and bouncier than Reggie, have a detailed plan for their video postcard which involves shots of them leaving their homes, standing in the middle of James Town, walking down streets, asides to the camera during their workshop and lots more. We end up shooting over 35 sections of their piece but only once or twice do they stumble on their words or look blank. In fact their challenge is more to know when to stop talking – they speak across each other, repeat and expand on what the other has said, are constantly itching to add new ideas. The result is mildly chaotic and endearingly entertaining.

On Monday and Tuesday I’m due to meet up with Nii and Collins to shoot their video postcards. When we met last week to watch the videos sent to them from the UK, Nii remarked upon how watching the video from Gabby at the Young Vic made him realise that there were people doing the same thing as him – or close enough – all over the world, and how comforting that was. It made me really happy to hear that, because it’s what this project is all about – finding common ground and sharing ideas within situations and contexts that in many ways are radically different.

Forster and Amanda’s second video to Hampstead Theatre’s Debra Glazer is online now at the InterACT! Project blog. Reggie’s will be up by Monday evening, Nii and Collins by Tuesday night.