As Billy Barrett says, so often Section 28 is used as a background, the context for a 1980s coming of age tale. It’s A Sin would be an example.
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00:00Good afternoon, my name is Phil Hewitt, Group Arts Editor at Sussex Newspapers.
00:05Lovely to speak to Billy and Elise, who are the authors of a really important play, which is
00:11touring. It's coming to Worthing, it's coming to Brighton, and it's coming to Chichester.
00:16It's called After the Act. Now, it's a play that goes back to and explores Section 28.
00:24And before we go much further, probably worth, if you don't mind, Elise, just remind us what
00:29Section 28 was. Sure, so Section 28 was a legislation that was brought in under Thatcher's
00:35government in 1988, that was in law till 2003, which prohibited the promotion of homosexuality
00:42within schools and by local authorities. It also prohibited the sort of promotion of
00:49pretended families. There are lots of vague terms that still, I think, people are a bit like,
00:55what does that even mean? But effectively, what it meant in practice was that a lot of
01:02queer teachers couldn't be open about their identity. If homophobic bullying took place
01:07within schools, it couldn't be called out. People couldn't talk about the gay identity of
01:13writers that they were teaching in the curriculum. So yeah, it meant that a lot of sort of education
01:19and sex education really lacked any inclusion of queer identities. And Billy, I guess we've
01:25got to try and get our minds around how on earth this could have happened. Obviously,
01:29a very different era. You think it was about fear, don't you? Yeah, I think in some ways,
01:36a very different era, I think, in some ways, kind of eerily similar to the times we're living
01:40through now. I think it was a fear in parents, very vocal parents, about new materials that
01:50were being brought into schools under the new kind of equalities agenda. But I also think that
01:55fear was hijacked and kind of magnified by the right wing press that really picked up on it as
02:01a story and pushed it as a kind of culture war. So I think there's kind of several groups that are
02:09around this. It's no one particular group that are pushing this anger against the new orthodoxy
02:16of kind of gay liberation. Absolutely. You say eerily similar to things that are happening now.
02:22At least tell me more why this is a story that we need to listen to now, do you think?
02:27I think it's not just about something in the past, is it? No, no, no, it's not. I think what we were
02:33aiming to do in making the show was educate ourselves about how a law like this could come
02:37into place and what the legacy and the impact is that it kind of leaves behind. And I don't
02:44think that means that we're only looking at this one law. We're exposing the political playbook for
02:48how laws like this can come into law. So I think we're seeing a similar thing happen now, but to a
02:57different community. I think the way that trans identity is being talked about and the way discourse
03:04around trans representation and inclusion and discussion in schooling particularly is being
03:11discussed. I think it's really relevant today. So in some ways we could smugly say, yes, we've
03:17moved on, but in other ways we absolutely haven't, have we? Yeah. So Billy, how will you judge the
03:25success of this play? What do you want in this play to do? How will we judge the success? I think we
03:31just like people to come and see it. I think it's a show that I think people can learn a lot from,
03:37but I also think have a lot of fun in watching. It is a musical as well as a documentary theatre
03:42piece. So I think the idea for us was always a little bit that the music and the musical form
03:48was a bit of a Trojan horse for the message and the content, which is this story that
03:54people don't know much about. So in terms of the success, I think we'll have to ask our audiences
03:59whether it's been successful. And a little flavour in advance of the kind of show it's going to be then.
04:05Oh, it's a big show with a big heart. It's got a lot of moving first-hand accounts and exits,
04:12verbatim show, and then a lot of obscene and quite shocking verbatim materials from politicians
04:20and newspapers. I think there's a lot of seriousness within it, but also a lot of fun.
04:27And it's a big, fun, queer night out. Yeah.
04:32It sounds great fun. It's after the act, it's coming to Chichester, Worthing and Brighton in
04:38our area. Lillian, it's lovely to speak to you both. Thank you.