A controversial play about the radicalisation of young Muslims was cancelled by the National Youth Theatre last month after its artistic director raised concerns about its creators’ “extremist agenda” according to newly released correspondence.
An email written by Paul Roseby argued that Homegrown, due to be staged at a school in Swiss Cottage with a 112-strong cast of 15- to 25-year-olds, had to be axed “to prevent any damage to NYT’s reputation and membership”.
The email was sent on 30 July but released on Thursday following a freedom of information request in the aftermath of a row about the decision to cancel the show, with the NYT accused of censorship by writers group PEN.
The NYT had previously only said that Homegrown had been dropped for reasons of quality.
Roseby’s newly released message said: “The creatives have failed to meet repeated requests for a complete chronological script to justify their extremist agenda and so it doesn’t look good for the future of Homegrown on National Youth Theatre turf.”
Homegrown, an immersive production designed to involve the audience, was set in a school aiming to dramatise how radicalisation comes about within schools. Its creators, writer Omar El-Khairy and director Nadia Latif, said the NYT was wrong to accuse them of extremism.
“It is clear there have been a lot of contradictions between what the National Youth Theatre has said publicly and what they are are obviously discussing internally, and it is good to see that brought out into the open,” said Latif. “I do think there is some really troubling language, particularly the use of ‘extremist’, in this email.”
Roseby had expressed fears that the play was exploring the dangerous territory of “where to place the hatred and blame” around extremism, without proper in-depth analysis, and said the content had prompted parental complaints.
“Since the start of rehearsals last Monday the attrition has been unusually high with 5 to date,” wrote Roseby.
“The use of language in the room has been disrespectful to NYT. We have had conversations with three parents – two have expressed grave concern over the direction of the piece.”
The complaints, he added, had led him to believe that the NYT had “to make a swift decision to prevent any damage or risk to NYT’s reputation and membership”.
The NYT created an internal SWOT (strengths, weakness, opportunities and threats ) analysis to decide whether staging the show was worth the controversy and backlash it might incite.
The email – which also reveals that the Arts Council, which gives funding to the NYT, expressed concerns that the pulling of the show could be construed as “censorship” – signs off: “At the end of the day we are simply ‘pulling a show’ and at a point that still saves us a lot of emotional, financial and critical fallout.”
Homegrown was originally meant to be staged in a school in Bethnal Green, near to where the three schoolgirls who disappeared to Syria in February had lived, but it was moved after an intervention from Tower Hamlets council.
Roseby’s message also indicates that the Met police wwas consulted as the production was in rehearsal and voiced some concerns.
“Whilst the police felt it was a valuable and important subject and supported the initiative, they rightly raised some concerns over the content with particular reference to any hate crimes and the ability for the National Youth Theatre to control all social media responses.”
Both El-Khairy and Latif said that during the process of making the production, they had been asked, because of the sensitive nature of the subject of Islamic radicalisation, to run a version of the script by the police and had also been told that plainclothes police officers would potentially be put among the audience.
The Met had initially denied any involvement in the play, but later conceded that an officer had met the NYT, a fact verified by the emails. However, the force denied any pressure had been put on the theatre company to shut down the production.
Latif said the emails confirmed suspicions she and El-Khairy had voiced about the reasons for cancelling the production, and said she was troubled by the language used in the letter.
In response to the publication of the email, the NYT has since released a longer statement, clarifying its position.
This said: “The NYT has never shied away from tackling controversial subjects. If this play was to provide those opportunities for the cast, we required the potentially controversial subject matter to be handled sensitively and with editorial balance and justification … Despite a lengthy and willingly collaborative process, the co-creators were not able to reassure us that the content of Homegrown satisfied these understandable and important criteria.”
In an interview with the Guardian last week, El-Khairy said he and Latif were now in discussion to get Homegrown staged elsewhere.
The shutdown of the playprompted allegations of censorship by the cast and creatives. An open letter from English PEN and the Index on Censorship was signed by some of the most highly regarded figures in the arts, including playwright Sir David Hare, artist Anish Kapoor and actor Simon Callow, all demanding a full explanation about the reasons for cancelling the show.
