Grey Coat students perform 'Flesh' at Westminster Abbey

Thursday 22nd & Friday 23rd March 2007

Grey Coat students have once again joined together with students from Westminster and Westminster City schools for a performance at Westminster Abbey, this time to perform ‘Flesh’ on Thursday 22nd and Friday 23rd March 2007. Reliving the success of the pageant of St Edward the Confessor at the Abbey in October 2005, the students worked together for a special performance to mark the bicentenary of the slave trade abolition.

The play, written by Ambrose Hogan and directed by Caroline Duck, both English and Drama teachers at The Grey Coat Hospital, was based around the slave trade, making use of dance, physical theatre, live music as well as drama. Based on slave liberation narratives and current historical thinking about an understanding of the trade, the action is centred on London, but moves through memory and nightmare into the central character’s experiences of the Africa of his childhood and the horrors of the middle passage, the sea journey between Africa and the Americas.

The play begins with the central character, David as an older man, looking back on his life from the stand-point of the early part of the nineteenth century. His memories take us (initially) back to his first day in London in 1770, shortly before the Somerset judgement of 1772 declares slavery illegal in English law - a judgement which had no effect on the slave trade.

David's memories within his memories - and his memories of other memories - then take us to a range of places involved in the slave trade: to his family in West Africa, to the horrific experiences of transported Africans during the middle passage and to the brutal treatment of black men and women throughout the triangle trade.

March has been a month of commemorating the 200th anniversary since the slave trade act was abolished in 1807. At The Grey Coat Hospital, remembering this anniversary has been much more than a history lesson – in addition to the performance of Flesh, activities have included special assemblies, a gospel music workshop with renowned Gospel singer Karen Gibson and Gospel performance at the Abbey at the evening service on Sunday 25th March. A number of students will also be present at Westminster Abbey on Tuesday 27th March for the national service of remembrance, at which the Queen will be present.