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Performance, Learning & Heritage

Understanding the performance

The performance included the following elements:

Two actors, playing three characters each; in order:

•  a curator

•  Thomas Clarkson

•  an African slave trader

•  a British slave trader

•  James Watkins, a freed slave

•  a cotton mill worker from Manchester .

Manchester features often throughout the performance, providing us with an accompanying narrative - one that many audience members express surprise and enjoyment at, and which has provided them with a 'way into' the story.

A promenade tour around the Museum, encountering different spaces (architecturally and symbolically) and different artefacts through the characters we, as an audience, meet. They span the history of abolition, eventually, cyclically, ending up back in 2007 with the curator.

An out-of-character introduction explaining what will happen over the course of the next hour, and what will be expected of the audience (in a non-threatening way, the audience are introduced to the option of questioning characters and entering debate). The actors give their real names, and acknowledge the transition that 'in-character' requires: to paraphrase: 'speaking of which, I'd better go and become the first character...'. This contributes to a distancing between actors and characters: 'they are not us' which in turn gives the audience licence to push, question and debate, but then when interacting with the actors out of role, to ask them those questions which are historically or practically impossible to ask en route.

There is also an out-of-character de-brief at the end of the performance, at which time audience members can ask questions about the research the performance is based on, the characters, the actors or, as was often the case, they can volunteer their own responses to the performance and its subject matter.

There is thus interaction both in and out of role. The audience get the opportunity to question the British Slave Trader during the tour, and to respond to verbal prompts throughout. The piece is based on in-depth research presented in order to convey the historical complexity of the subject matter: as one audience member said 'It made what I thought was a straightforward campaign into an interesting and complicated journey' (M, 19-30, Rochdale , 22).