The Mayhem Method

By Joshua Mellors (Researcher)

I’ve been very much enjoying the case study research for our project. We had an insightful visit to the Hackney branch of the London Boxing Academy and travelled to Birmingham for an interview with one of the actor-teachers from Big Brum. But, we figured, what better way to begin than with our own Mayhem Company?

Our first case study was a great experience. Not only did I learn a great deal more about the company from our interviews with artistic director Ben May and young Mayhem members-cum-session leaders Alex Simpson and Mia Korell, but through observation of one of the weekly Tuesday evening acting classes I finally got to see first-hand what Mayhem actually does. My months of reading and theorising began to fuse with reality.

Ben believes that Mayhem offers an inclusive environment and a sense of ‘belonging, family and community’ to its members. A large aspect of our project examines the ‘democraticness’ of out-of-school groups in terms of the input their young participants have. In the case of Mayhem, its productions are very much inspired by the ‘stories’ of its young people and two of the company’s young members sit on its advisory board (both Alex and Mia in fact). But Ben made it clear that the most important characteristic of Mayhem’s work is quality; there’s ultimately no point of doing what they do if it doesn’t lead to a professional production, with the young people acting alongside professional actors in a professional venue, under the high expectations that such professionality demands.

He thus has no qualms putting his foot down when necessary to guarantee this – such as over the decision to accept a Heritage Lottery-funded commission and base their last production, Elephant 21, on oral histories on the lives of local Elephant and Castle residents. Alex explained that although many of his peers – primarily concerned with acting rather than oral history – were not immediately too enthusiastic, they soon came to realise the potential of the project. The play had a critically acclaimed, sold out run last year at Royal Court’s Theatre Local in Elephant and Castle. It is through involvement in a production of this scale that Mayhem’s members will get the most out of their experience with the company, Ben believes.

In the current funding climate it is important for youth arts organisations to provide opportunities for training and experience as much as possible in order to demonstrate the added employability they offer their members, and thus their economic as well as social value. A key point that emerged from our discussions with Alex and Mia was how crucial their involvement with Mayhem has been to their professional development. Inspired by Ben’s teaching and given the chance to take sessions herself, Mia now teaches in a primary school. Having left school at 16, Alex explained that he has managed to fill his CV with the positions of responsibility he has been given in productions – such as assistant director in Elephant 21 – and the many other training opportunities he has had access to. He would consider one day becoming an entrepreneur, but, at least for the meantime, he wants to balance whatever he does with continued involvement with Mayhem.

As we neared 7:30 and the close of our interviews, a trickle of 16-21 year olds trickled into the Royal Festival Hall’s Violet Room: sitting, chatting, fiddling around in bags, playing with phones, generally making themselves at home. It was a very social atmosphere. I noticed a plethora of dress styles: hi-tops with chequered shirts; a shirt and tie peeking out from under a hoody; denim jackets and shorts with Dr. Martens boots; tracksuits and New Era caps; even an NHS staff card dangling from someone’s neck. I was glad to have stuck around, it seemed an interesting crowd. The group’s makeup of local south-Londoners mostly from ethnic minority backgrounds also made quite a contrast to my experiences of youth drama groups in Bedford, which almost exclusively involved members of its white, middle-class youth population.

Having never seen Ben in the teaching context, actually interacting with the young people we had often discussed (mostly in abstract terms), I was particularly interested to see how this would go. And my curiosity had been peaked by Mia’s extensive praise of his teaching and directing abilities. His concern for ‘quality’ became apparent straight off the bat: ‘I’m not quite happy with the script we have this week so today we’ll be working on method.’ Instructing the group to stand in a circle, as was apparently customary, Ben began with shoulder rotation exercises for the warm-up. The group followed willingly hesitation and with minimal giggling, though there was an eruption of laughter when Alex made a surprising violent twitching gesture. After the warm-up they moved on to a drama-related trust exercise in pairs. One person closed their eyes and walked, guided by the other, who at first had a hand on the back of his or her neck and then released it.

The routines were sprinkled with friendly banter: when Ben intermittently asked people how they were, he might be met with a sarcastic comment, to which he would provide a witty retort. Perhaps what differed most from a school session was the relaxed atmosphere. There was a clear structure to the session, which was maintained effectively, but within that there was plenty of space to laugh and have fun. I was aware that I might look slightly conspicuous sat in the corner with legs crossed, pad on lap, frantically scribbling away, but I didn’t manage to distract anyone from what they were doing.

The next exercise was an enunciation exercise, for which the group resumed its circle formation. They had to pass a series of sounds – first ‘buh, duh, guh’ then ‘fuh, tuh, kuh’ – around the circle as quickly as possible, changing direction at random. Consonants had to be emphasised, as Ben explained that they are crucial when it comes to script. This was the further developed; the group paired up, then had to act out related roles of their choice, such as a doctor and patient, each using only the language of ‘buh, duh, guh’ and ‘fuh, tuh, kuh’, respectively. As one might imagine, this was extremely humourous, but mostly because of how convincing they were. Following an individual performance of each piece and a guessing game of who the characters were, Ben announced the next task, whereby the performers had to act out an abstract concept such as ‘loyal’, ‘proud’ or ‘caring’.

It was around this time that I had to leave, but I could see where the session was going. Mayhem’s productions utilise these improvisations and much of their material comes to inform the eventual script devised by associate writer Sarah May. Ben informed me that for their new project, Big Britain Boxing, they intend for the first time to use work from Friday’s fortnightly writing sessions for the play’s script. The writing sessions are in turn using raw material from the oral history research my colleagues have been carrying out on British boxing. I look forward to seeing how it all comes together.

Is New Enterprise the solution to youth unemployment?

By Daniel O’Brien (researcher)

Last week we were guests at the launch of Make a Job, Don’t Take Job, authored by Barbara Gunnell and Martin Bright and published by New Deal of the Mind.

The report looks at the reintroduction of the New Enterprise Allowance Scheme, which aims to encourage young people into self-employment and which they argue is ideally suited to helping nurture the ambitions of would-be creative entrepreneurs.

Gunnell and Bright believe that in order for potential creative entrepreneurs to benefit from the scheme, the Government must motivate public and private sector organisations to make available suitable work spaces, ‘not only to work but also to meet and learn from others.’ They also emphasise the importance of mentoring and advice to young entrepreneurs.

Indeed, at the RSA’s recent State of the Arts Conference collaboration was the buzzword, and appeared in the eyes of many to be the secret to survival.

The NEAS has the potential to be highly beneficial to many young people, creative or not, and by and large following Gunnell and Bright’s recommendations would give it the highest chance of success. But when considering the challenge we are facing, that of helping young, inexperienced – and sometimes marginalised – people into work, there were two aspects of the launch that troubled me.

Firstly, NDotM’s choice of ‘example entrepreneurs,’ who took part in the discussion panel on the night, seemed a little odd.
While their stories were undoubtedly impressive, I couldn’t help but feel that their narrative jarred uncomfortably with the overall message NDotM were trying to deliver.

Samata Angel, a young, successful fashion entrepreneur, had worked her way up from boutique shop assistant, to event coordinator, and through various other senior positions in the fashion industry before deciding to strike out on her own. Inspiring and brave yes, but she was hardly starting out from scratch. She herself acknowledged how her contacts gave her a boost. She also had a wealth of experience of what is to many a highly intimidating industry and of the people within it.

Of course everyone has to start somewhere, but it is the transition from school, college or unemployment into enterprise that NDotM’s pamphlet is concerned with. In this case however, the Samata’s contacts and knowledge were gained through employment, not entrepreneurship. The average graduate (or anyone in employment for less than five years) can hardly hope to have such advantages when starting a business; unless of course they are well connected in other ways, but I will come to that later.

Entrepreneur No. 2, Terry Mardi admittedly had less experience when he entered the world of self-employment, but had still worked briefly for a major advertising company. And this gave him another advantage that both successes have over most graduates: validation and the sense of self worth that comes with someone asking you to work for them. Such self-belief is essential in starting one’s own business, and is something that graduates are losing in buckets.

I am not arguing against encouraging young people into work or self-employment, I am simply drawing attention to what I believe is a bizarre choice as sources of inspiration. But maybe I’m being an awful pedant. These people were there for illustrative purposes and for the benefit of the present audience only and while to me they failed to illustrate much that was helpful, this shouldn’t take anything away from the argument as a whole.

My second problem, is far less well-formed, and yet one which I cannot seem to shake.

During the discussion, there appeared to be a widespread dismissal of unpaid internships as exploitative. It was argued that such schemes tended to benefit those with connections or who can afford to not be paid a bean, and therefore had a tendency to be elitist.

Indeed in the last few days the Tory party have provided a worryingly on-the-nose example of just how elitist internships can be. And the ideal internship may well be (as ippr has argued) one that pays a fair wage.

But, failing this and given where we are economically, we should not dismiss the concept of working for no salary to gain experience. If fairly run, internships can help level the playing field and compensate for nepotistic advantage, allowing anyone – not just the bosses nephew – to gain experience in an industry.

Of course internships can breed inequality, as much as they can sometimes be an utterly useless waste of time. But this need not be the case as long as the employers see them, not as just a way to secure cheap labour, but as a way of fairly providing new opportunities while building their reputations (there is no better advert for a company than a happy ex-employee).

Employers then need to be asking some questions when setting up internships: are they widely promoted and accessible? What are the limits of exploitation? What do both sides hope to gain from the experience? What does the intern walk away with in terms of strengthening his or her CV? Critically, can those on low incomes access internships and, if not, what can an employer do to make this happen?

Additionally more needs to be done to ensure that people are paid when an internship does begin to more closely resemble a job. In tough times there are far too many internships – including in the voluntary sector – that look suspiciously like replacement labour.

While self-employment can provide a more level playing field, particular attention needs to be given to the role of personal networks. I fear that in the case of New Enterprise, particularly in the creative sector, those born to privilege – and who therefore have more connections – would flourish by being able to access the advice and even custom of their social and familial networks. While those born into working and lower middle class households would be left to the unforgiving will of the market. Since many of these start-ups would be in direct competition with one another, there is a danger that only the well connected will survive.

Perhaps I am being overly pessimistic, but I would argue that a proper system of mentoring, collaboration and public and private support would go some way to counter this imbalance.

Overall such a scheme has cause to provide good cheer. I am optimistic about the future of the creative industries, creative people are by nature flexible and forward thinking, and if any group makes best use of the New Enterprise Scheme I believe it to be us.

Meeting the Open Book Project

The research team at Mayhem recently attended a fascinating meeting with representatives of the Open Book project at Goldsmiths University in South-East London. The project works with people who have offended and/or experienced addiction with the aim of encouraging them to take up education.

We were welcomed at the campus café by project coordinator Joe Baden and outreach manager Danny Afzal on a very busy day for the project. The atmosphere was lively, dynamic and not a little chaotic. The project team appeared to have informally annexed the café’s central floor and a constant stream of participants ebbed in and out of the area, rarely failing to greet Joe and Danny as they did to have a quick chat. Despite the constant human traffic, the meeting was informative and insightful. And though I hate the word, perhaps even a little inspirational.

At the heart of Open Book’s mission is the belief ‘that every person in society has the right to fulfil their academic potential.’ Open Book is about encouraging academic ambition in those who would not ordinarily view education as being for them. Its target group includes ex-offenders, people with a history of mental health issues, recovering addicts and single parents from excluded backgrounds. It provides academic and emotional support to all members, for whom life’s daily (often serious) problems do not vanish upon enrolment to an undergraduate degree.

Over 270 students have registered with the project, and of those over 58 have found places on either undergraduate or foundation courses. Perhaps even more impressive is that to date only one person has been forced to drop out of one of these courses, a testament to the exemplary network of support Open Book has established.

Despite its growing success and influence (Joe tells us that it has now become a port of call for ‘regular’ students looking for support), the project still operates within surprisingly non-hierarchical structures. Tutelage and academic support is provided by those who have gone through the Open Book process themselves: they tend to have a better understanding of what new members are going through, both in terms of their studies as well as any personal problems that can serve as a barrier to learning.

Danny himself is a testament to the project’s way of working: having been in and out of prison since he was a teenager, he eventually decided that enough was enough and got involved with Open Book. Moving away from his destructive social circle, Danny immersed himself in education and at 33 he gained a 2.1 degree in History. As well as working for Open Book he works as a researcher for the Prison Reform Trust.

What does it mean to us?
In terms of Mayhem’s own research, Open Book’s members are a little out of our age range. That said, the group may be able to give us important insights into what makes people disengage from education at such a young age (and what makes them re-engage). As with a lot of people who find themselves disengaged from higher education, many of Open Book’s members were excluded from education and began offending at a very young age.

Open Book manages to get people – many of whom are marginalised – interested in education, by making learning feel relevant and valuable to them. They recognise that in order to learn, some people need support in dealing with other key issues in their lives. This approach may help us in understanding what makes a successful and engaging out-of-school provider.