Eighty members of the Islington community will act alongside professionals in a cycle of plays celebrating the key workers who kept life running during the pandemic.
Teachers, midwives, cleaners, supermarket staff, and refuse collectors are the subject of nine short plays at The Almeida over three days - highlighting the "hope and humour" of those on the frontline.
Ranging in age from 16-96, many of the community participants are key workers themselves, appearing in dramas such as Francesca Beard's The Social Care Worker's Play, which sees a woman haunted by visions of the clients who depend on her, and Molly Taylor's TFL Workers' play, which spotlights staff at Highbury and Islington Station.
Seven Sisters playwright Annie Jenkins, focuses on delivery drivers in a drama that includes abusive parcels swearing at a driver from the back of the van, Boris Johnson's announcements, and an acapella singalong that offers a "unifying moment of hope".
It's based on a real life friendship that developed during lockdown between an out of work chef and a musician.
"I hardly ever write about men but when I spoke to Chris and Matt who met doing a delivery job and became best friends, it led to an unexpected representation of masculinity that feels really lovely," she said. "They would see each other for half an hour at the depot every morning then speak on their hands free during a journey down the motorway to pick up parcels. They built this friendship over the phone over many months."
Played by professionals, her characters Mark and Shane humanise a job that "expects human beings to act like machines," and which stems from "our laziness in wanting something quickly."
"In an industry driven by targets it was important to focus on these characters as names not numbers, zooming in on delicate personal relationships while giving a bigger picture of what this job actually involves and the impact the customer has on the people doing it," she added.
"During lockdown, shopping became an epidemic. This play shows the effect on the human beings at the bottom of the ladder. We see the faces of people we often only saw as they walked away. But the person giving you this parcel has a whole life behind them."
The Keyworkers Cycle has been twice delayed due to Covid and Jenkins wonders whether audiences may be more ready to reflect on that first lockdown which is already starting to feel unreal.
"When I read the play again after a year I realised it is about a blanket of grief and the way we cope with it - the humanity, camaraderie and support these two offer each other is hopeful and funny. And I like the idea of dissolving barriers between professional and community theatre."
Upper Street resident and performing arts graduate John Neto not only plays a parcel in Griffiths' play, but has first hand knowledge of delivering up to 130 of them a day. When a ban on international travel stopped him from working, he took a delivery job - "the only thing available".
"I'm aware of the stress and challenges of the day to day life," he says. "I was impressed that the script covered the two opposites of customer - dealing with people in a bad mood who shoot the messenger, and the elderly lady who is happy to see someone knocking and wants to spend five minutes talking while in the back of your mind you have another 130 stops to do. You become a bit rude because there's no time to take a break, you gotta keep moving. It's all about speed. The ideal is to drop a parcel with no interaction."
From dodging traffic wardens to customers expecting him to trek up to the 5th floor, to "unrealistic targets," he says: "I appreciate it so much more when I get deliveries because I know what they go through."
"What's frustrating is they constantly move you. In the first week the deliveries took until 7pm, by the third I finished at 4.30pm because I knew the route, then it changes and you have to learn a new area and obstacles."
Neto, who has a passion for performing and says the whole experience has been positive, has a message for aggressive customers.
"We are just the last leg of you ordering your stuff and it arriving. Being abused can really upset your mental state. You have a fear throughout the day not knowing if you are going to have to face something similar at the next stop."
The Key Workers Cycle runs March 9-11 at Almeida Theatre in association with Islington-based All Change, Kentish Town's Clean Break and Hackney disability theatre group Graeae.
For bookings https://almeida.co.uk/whats-on/the-key-workers-cycle/28-jan-2022-5-feb-2022
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