This powerful piece of verbatim theatre about the tower block fire that killed 72 people in 2017 demands empathy, not sympathy, from its audience. It starkly communicates what it’s like to stagger blindly down a cramped, smoke-filled escape stair on crutches, or carrying children, knowing that neighbours and family members are trapped and suffocating above you.
Compiled by Gillian Slovo from interviews with survivors and material culled from the inquiry into the fire, and directed on a bare stage by Phyllida Lloyd and Anthony Simpson-Pike, it’s a sprawling work with an awkward ending. But it reminds us that this was an outrage caused by deliberate policies in the rich heart of our city rather than some random, distant tragedy. We shouldn’t just remember Grenfell: we should feel it.
