Fritz - Comment is free ; & Start swimming: two plays

James Fritz START SWIMMING NICK HERN BOOKS London www.nickhernbooks.co.uk ContentsIntroduction to Comment is Free & Start Swimming: Two Plays It makes me very happy to see these two plays side by side. Comment Is Free started life at Old Vic New Voices in June 2015, in a staged reading directed by Kate Hewitt and produced by Martha Rose Wilson. In the audience was Becky Ripley, an incredibly talented young radio producer who saw the potential for the play to work as an audio drama. Working closely with Becky I rewrote the text with radio in mind, and the play was broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in October 2016. If you can find a version of the original radio production lurking somewhere on the internet its worth having a listen, not least to imagine the long, long hours Becky must have spent in the editing room. Understanding that the feeling of the plays noise is as crucial as its content, she spliced together a hundred different crowdsourced voices who delivered a mixture of written and improvised lines based on the text.

The effect was noisy and disorientating in exactly the right way. Anyone thinking about performing this play on stage should feel free to do the same if they so wish so long as the beats of the story are hit, its more important that the noise feels exciting, realistic and terrifying than particularly faithful to the text. Start Swimming was made incredibly quickly in the spring of 2017 with director Ola Ince and Young Vic Taking Part. Tasked with responding to Paul Masons performance and book Why Its Kicking Off Everywhere (which documented the successes and failures of the various protests and revolutions of 2011), Ola and I worked with a group of twelve young people from Lambeth and Southwark to create a new piece that would transfer from the Young Vic to the Edinburgh Fringe. Our aim was to make something that would articulate how our cast felt about growing up marginalised in a major city during a time of incredible political upheaval. We decided early on to make something that wasnt specific to any one voice or story in the room, but instead communicated their widely shared feelings of frustration, confusion, anger and powerlessness.

This led to the texts bare, repetitive structure, which in rehearsals (thanks to Olas input) was blended with a binary yes/no that would often reset proceedings when the wrong answer was given. In Olas original production which staged the text in a sort of hellish gameshow, with the cast elevated on light-up boxes that would choose participants at random the yess (Y) were marked by the ding of a bell, the nos (X) by a buzzer which gave an electric shock to our committed actors. The effect was exhausting to watch in the best possible way, and the cast were some of the most inspiring, talented people Ive had the pleasure to work with. Each of them took the offer given to them by the plays blankness and ran with it, stamping their own authority and identity over every word. Im excited to discover how those same Ys and Xs might be interpreted differently in the future, and how a new companys voices and experiences might change the meaning of Start Swimming in ways I cant imagine. These two very different texts started life on the same street in London.

Their first drafts were written about two years apart two years in which it felt, and still feels, that the whole world turned upside down. Both attempted to capture a snapshot of this turbulent period. And both represent records of the first time I worked with brand new collaborators in a brand new way. I hope you find them interesting. James Fritz
October 2017Acknowledgements Thanks to Imogen, Rob and all at Young Vic Taking Part. Our incredible company, and everyone who shared along the way.

And Ola and Tyrell, who made it. J.F.Start Swimming was first performed in The Clare, Young Vic, London, on 26 April 2017. The play transferred to Summerhall, Edinburgh, on 2 August 2017, as part of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. The cast was as follows: Adrian David Paul Charlotte Dylan Eleanor Williams Emma James Filipe Caetano Hana Oliveira Isaac Vincent Kaajel Patel Kimberley Okoye Kwabena Ansah Shanice Weekes-Brown

Director & Dramaturg	Ola Ince
Designer	Jacob Hughes
Sound	Max Perryment
Light	Amy Mae
Light (Edinburgh)	Nell Allen
Assistant Director	Tyrell Williams
Production Manager	Emily Seekings
Stage Manager	Annique Reynolds
Assistant Stage Manager	Sophie Rubenstein
Production Stage Manager (Edinburgh)	Viv Clavering
Studio Technician	Nell Allen
Stage Technician	Ryan Smalley
Costume Supervisor	Kinnetia Aisidore
Set	Young Vic Workshop
Participation Project Manager	Rob Lehmann
Director of Taking Part	Imogen Brodie
Young Associate Taking Part	Daniella Connor
Project Assistant	Scarlett Sterne
Marketing Officer	Beanie Ridler

 so you better start swimming or youll sink like a stone,
for the times they are a-changingFor Adrian, Charlie, Ellie, Emma, Filipe, Hana,
Isaac, Kaaj, Kim, Kwabs, Shanice and Michael  Disobedience, in the eyes of anyone who has read history, is mans original virtue. It is through disobedience that progress has been made, through disobedience and through rebellion. Albert Einstein (probably) Note on TextY indicates an affirmative response a yes, or a ding, or a reward of some sort. X indicates a negative response a no, or a buzzer, or a punishment of some sort. ? indicates a response neither one thing nor the other. ? indicates a response neither one thing nor the other.

A line with no full stop at the end indicates an unfinished thought. A dash at the end of a line indicates an interruption. W Wo Whu Whuuuu Wha Wha wha wha wha Wha wha what. What? What. What ye What yerrrrrr What yeeee-errrrrrrrr Ye-Oooooo What yoooooo What you? D D Doeeee What you doeeee Ng ng What you doeeeeeng H Ha Heh What you doeeing heh. X What you doing here? Im. X What you doing here? Breathing? X What you doing here? Blinking? X What you doing here? Sweating? X What you doing here? Standing? YYYYY What you doing here? Standing. YX What you doing here? Standing. YX What you doing here? Standing.

Why? X What you doing here? Standing. Where X What you doing here? Standing. Standing still standing alone standing up standing X What you doing here? Standing. You cant stand here. Y. Of course I can. X What you doing here? Standing.

You cant stand here. See that sign? Y What does it say? Um. X See that sign. What does it say? Keep off the grass. Y And where are you standing? The grass? You have to get off. X One-hundred-pound fine. Y I got permission. Y I got permission.

From who? The owner of the grass. And whos that? Mr Grass? X What you doing here? Standing. On the grass. Thats right. Well, youre not allowed.