By James Hadley in London

Cardboard Citizens is a professional theatre company who work with London's homeless people. This is true community theatre, as they develop shows with members of the community to be performed back to the community, boosting the sense of community in the process. They also run workshops in acting, dancing, samba drumming, singing and slam poetry at various hostels for homeless people.By James Hadley in London

Cardboard Citizens is a professional theatre company who work with London's homeless people. This is true community theatre, as they develop shows with members of the community to be performed back to the community, boosting the sense of community in the process. They also run workshops in acting, dancing, samba drumming, singing and slam poetry at various hostels for homeless people.A while back I had my first experience of their work when I went to see an industry performance of their new show 'The Help' at Toynbee Studios, which is a lively complex of rehearsal and performance spaces alongside a cluster of offices for small arts organisations, with a vibrant onsite café, all in the heart of London's East End in Whitechapel.

'The Help' was a new play by Sarah Woods which Cardboard Citizens were taking on a tour around London's hostels for homeless people. The play was like a dramatisation of three slice of life short stories. One followed the stress of a day in the life of a guy running one of the hostels - with simultaneous demands firing his way from all directions; another followed the conflicts of a young guy living in a hostel who was trying to walk the straight and narrow but finding it challenging to not keep breaking the rules. The third, and probably most interesting story, was about an illegal immigrant brought into the UK by a family for whom she was already working as a nanny overseas. This showed how easy it was for her employers to exploit her, paying her a pittance because they had her passport and could report her as an illegal overstayer if she tried leaving them.

Each of the three stories were played out by a company of four actors, introduced by a fifth performer, all of whom had had first hand experience of homelessness. And that doesn't mean there was anything less than the professional standard of acting you expect in other theatre shows. Then the fifth performer facilitated a forum theatre session, where the audience chose one of the stories and got to stop the action at any point they liked, and swap places with a character to show what they would have done differently in the situation. It's a fantastic way of engaging an audience into the heart of a play's issues, and generating a feeling of pro-active ability and shared concern as a community.

As is usual with a company focussed on homeless people, the audience did include some individuals who were not afraid to challenge the rules a little. This made the facilitator's job a little challenging at times, including when one audience volunteer got up onstage and then didn't have anything to contribute but resisted relinquishing the spotlight. It takes a particular finesse to strongarm a large man back into his seat while maintaining a sense of calm and control. Like reality TV, some of the audience contributions were wildly entertaining because of their unpredictability. One young girl was very shy and refused to act out her version of what the protagonist should have done, but wanted to describe it instead. When she was eventually cajoled into taking the stage, she proved to be an absolute natural, and more compelling than the original actor had been.

This was the second time I'd seen forum theatre in action here, and again it really impressed me with how engaged the audience suddenly became - you could feel the energy go up several notches of excitement. I can well imagine that at some of the hostels the forum discussion gets quite heated; what a wonderful way of engaging people in discussion about key issues in their community.

Read previous Sets and the City blogs

Feel free to get in touch with any questions (or if you're planning a London visit and want some theatre recommendations) to jamesstuarthadley@gmail.com

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09/02/09