UK Theatre Network

FAIR TRADE

Emma Thompson, activist and Academy Award winning actress and Executive Producer of FAIR TRADE says of the show:

'One of the best scripts I've seen in years; I'm extremely proud to be involved in this production'.

Given the subject matter, the production of FAIR TRADE by Shatterbox at Rich Mix's East End venue, before embarking on a run at this year's Edinburgh Festival, was met with a heartfelt reponse by the somewhat stunned preview audience.

Is wasn't that the play was so emotionally moving - it was the rather objective way it was presented, which, ultimately, was the best way to present subject matter that was so stark and horrifyingly real, and which to date, has not been presented on stage before.

Verbatim theatre has been gaining in popularity in the last few years and is an excellent forum to present theatre as a platform for social change and never was there an area of our society today that needs to be looked at more seriously than the current situation of human sex traffficking. Alive and kicking in the brothels of London and with, at a conservative estimate, involving over 5,000 trafficking victims in the UK today.

The staging was simple, which was a good choice; a 'box-like' set, symbolising the reality of imprisonment that these women are caught up in and are forced to 'work' within. The blackboard backdrop acted as a useful way of introducing the two female protagonists - the simple childlike chalking up of their names at the beginning of their journey and subsequently whose names and identities were wiped away and obliterated as they are sucked into a life of prostitution in the UK by unscrupulous dealers in the sex trade. At the end they chalk up the number of nameless clients they are forced to have sex with in order to pay back the price of their slavery; and, even then, the promise of freedom and their passports home are still denied.

Anna Holbeck as Ukrainian Elena and Sarah Amankwah as Samai as the two women, whose true stories were recorded by the two founder members of Shatterbox to use as the foundation of the intial scripts for the production, offer naturalistic, sympathetic performances without over indulging in what could be overtly emotionalised victimised portrayals of the women. Instead, they chart the reasons behind how and why these women got into this situation; and because of that engage us further still into how easily so many other women could against their will, be drawn into this world. But these women are indeed truly victims in a situation that is happening right now under our noses and it seems, very little is being done by the authorities to change this.

Both women, one from a poor village in the Ukraine, the other from war-torn Dafur, with no family left to live for, are brought over to the UK with promises of work and a future, by unscrupulous characters. The fact that one of the traffickers Sophia (Adele Lynch) , is a woman, rankles even more. It is her who brings Elena over to London and ensares her with even more callousness than her male counterparts, because, as she states 'it happened to her'.

What hits home most is something Elena says - ' how many more women will they bring over for the Olympics in London in 2012'. It is the statement of the production and makes you sit up and realise that this is now, it is current and it is ongoing.

This is more than a 'play' - it's a cry for help. It's a plea to us all to get involved in the many organisations already connected to the production to raise awareness, to spread the word, to force the authorities to act, to put pressure on the police to raid the brothels, to seek out the dealers, to put a stop to the fastest growing growing international crime.  Sex trafficking is here right now. It's victims are mainly young, vulnerable, disenfranchised women looking for a new life in the UK and other wealthy European countries. Most of them are lured over with a promise of finding work; a way to earn a living to help their families back home and then consequently led unknowingly into a living hell of 'working' up to 12 hours a day, with up to 40 'clients' a day. There is no 'glamour' in the sex industry. It is exploitation - pure and simple, and the sooner we act and the sooner the authorities intervene is not soon enough.

'It is very rare you can escape from the pimps, very difficult you know. You can't. The days you just have to work, you can't get away from them. You just want to kill yourself'. Albanian survivor of Sex Trafficking.

Go and see this show. Theatre is one of the only ways at times in which situations like this can be brought to the fore and because of that and because we as human beings should and need to be awakened to what is happening in this underground world, makes this not just another production of a worthy cause. Human trafficking is the second largest illegal trade in the world. If enough public pressure is placed on the authorities and if enough of us cared to get involved, then there is still hope for these modern day 'slaves' of our society to be freed from a living hell.

FAIR TRADE

Edinburgh Festival

Pleasance King DomeTheatre

Aug 4 - 30th 2010

15.30

Running time: 1 hr (no interval)

For further information contact:

Sarah Crompton, Producer

www.shatterbox.co.uk

Other organisations:

www.helenbamber.org.uk

www.stopthetraffik.org

www.atalliance.org.uk

www.unseenuk.org