This guest blog has been written by producer and performer, Ali Michael. Ali’s work is well known to TiPP, and we would like to offer our support for the creative art project that he and TiPP Project Manager and Artist, Cara Looij have developed as a response to Ed Edwards’ The Political History of Smack and Crack. We wholeheartedly recommend the show to you and if you can help Ali and Cara realise the next stage of the project, then please do.

The Political History of Smack and Crack is an epic love-song to a lost generation following Neil and Mandy’s relationship through the heroin epidemic of the Thatcher years. After the riots of 1981, smack, and it’s wake crack, became rife in urban areas, enchanting both the vulnerable and the disillusioned through addiction and crime.

When tens of thousands of people with nothing to lose stick a needle in their arm and melt away to nothing…

When an entire generation turn from rebellion to petty crime, or   gangsterism,

A decision is taken “at the highest level” not to bust the biggest dealers, 

Even though everyone of them’s known from Liverpool to Lahore.

Neil doesn’t know that the new head of the army they appoint after the riots,

Specialises in psychological warfare and nurturing criminal gangs.

That he’s accused of war crimes now in Ireland and Kenya, this general.

That he says in the book he writes on the subject of crushing rebellion:

At such times the law becomes a propaganda cover for the disposal of unwanted members of the public.

Neil doesn’t know they use the heroin crimewave to give the police vast new      powers. 

He knows fuck all about them details Neil.

But when the only place you feel free is in jail, you don’t need the history lesson.

It’s in your blood.

The Political History of Smack and Crack, written by Ed Edwards

This echoes even now with people directly affected still accessing support from charities across the country such as the Mustard Tree and the Men’s Room in Manchester, Bristol Drug Project, SIFA Fireside in Birmingham, Catching Lives in Canterbury and Skylight Crisis.

I’ve been working with these charities over the last few months as I simultaneously produce the national tour of The Political History of Smack and Crack. Together with local artist Cara Looij, I have been developing this project to creatively link service users to remember the riots through a national art project. Especially as we now approach its 40-year anniversary next year. 

The aim: create a new artwork which is made up of service users' artistic responses to The Political History of Smack and Crack.

We’ve been coordinating workshops to take place when the play is in a theatre nearby and offer participants an opportunity to see the show. Cara Looij is leading the design of the workshop experience. She is a brilliant Manchester-based visual artist and facilitator working primarily on community and socially engaged projects, and she recently scalped the prize of Young Creative of the Year at the Manchester Culture Awards after a nomination from Simon at TiPP. 

Using The Political History of Smack and Crack as inspiration, participants will create their own artistic response on an A5 Art Tile. Throughout the tour, more and more Art Tiles will be created and the collection will be displayed in each theatre venue as a collage of individual responses that make up the whole artwork.

Once the tour is over, each Art Tile will be rendered digitally. The originals will be returned to the artists and, if we raise enough money, we will produce high-quality prints of the whole artwork which will be gifted to each participating charity for exhibition.

That’s where you come in. Without a little extra funding, we won’t be able to achieve the full ambition of the project.

I really hope that you can help us! You can read more here:

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/community-art-political-history-of-smack-crack#/

Ali is a creative producer and performer based in Manchester. He has been a Supported Artist at the Royal Exchange Theatre for the last year with his company Ransack Theatre. Having trained as a producer at Liverpool’s Everyman & Playhouse, he also works independently across communities and industries in the North-West to deliver large scale outreach in tandem with ambitious new theatre.