More Than One Story E-Book

Various

• Herausgeber: Nick Hern Books
• Kategorie: Poesie und Drama
• Serie: NHB Modern Plays
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 207

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2025

Beschreibung

'All around you see us. Broken, breaking, mending, Don't pretend you can't hear us too.' This anthology is testimony, resistance, a nationwide act of creative truth-telling. This is More Than One Story. For over thirty years, Cardboard Citizens has harnessed the power of theatre and storytelling to change the narrative of homelessness and poverty for individuals and society. More Than One Story is the company's first-ever anthology: a groundbreaking collection of new writing by thirty-seven emerging and established writers from across the UK with lived experience of homelessness, poverty and inequity. From sofa-surfing and street-sleeping to the rental industry, citizenship, identity and mental health, these monologues shift between imagined futures and urgent realities, encompassing resilience, hope, rage and humour, to offer a multifaceted portrait of homelessness and poverty in the UK today.  Featuring original pieces from Sonali Bhattacharyya, Malorie Blackman, Chris Bush, Kayleigh Llewellyn, Michelle De Swarte, Inua Ellams, Matilda Feyiṣayọ Ibini, Debbie Hannan, Charlie Josephine, Errol McGlashan, Neetu Singh, Chris Sonnex, Joelle Taylor, Naomi Westerman, Roy Williams, alongside twenty-two new works from a national open call – and a foreword by BAFTA Award-winning actor Michael Sheen. 'This book is unlike anything else – it brings together voices and experiences of homelessness and poverty that are too often ignored, but that carry incredible power, honesty, and humanity' Rory Kinnear

Leseprobe

Contents

Dedication

Foreword by Michael Sheen

Introduction by Chris Sonnex

About Cardboard Citizens

Bring-your-kids-to-work day (every day… and night) Adil Hassan

deserving, undeserving Allie Bittar

Crunch Bobby Brill

Longest Day Caitriona Shoobridge

And for Once, I Just Let It Be Nice Charlie Josephine

Orbweaver Chloe Barrow

UNDER THE RADAR Chris Bush

This Is What It Means Chris Sonnex

3-Wheel Car Daniel York Loh

Snakes and Landlords Debbie Hannan

Quetzal Errol McGlashan

Brooms / Inua Ellams

When rent is due Jhenifer Acacia

Wit ye sorry for? Joanne Gallagher

The Ghosts of Who We Were Yesterday Joelle Taylor

MAN. UP. Jordon Grant

THIS SIDE Julie Tsang

So, there are 12 things… Kay Adshead

Boiling Frogs Kayleigh Llewellyn

Balloons Kerry Fitzgerald

Yes Chef! Khasha Hobbeheydar

A Lady Who Lunches Malorie Blackman

i know what i did… and i don’t regret it Matilda Feyiṣayọ Ibini

Homelessness is Sneaky Michelle De Swarte

Sandwiches Naomi Westerman

The Surviving Room Neetu Singh

No Place Oakley Flanagan

Carpe Diem on a Tote Bag Peyvand Sadeghian

MONSTERS Redd Lily Roche

can I stay at yours mondaytuesdaywednesdaythursdayfridaysaturdayorsunday night Rina Vergano

Ozwald Boateng, If You Must Roy Williams

The Day the Door Opened Sally Lovutta Coker

Go Where the Water Is Shona Bukola Babayemi

Sabbir at the Estate Agents Sonali Bhattacharyya

GenRent Sophie Cairns

Breathe In / Breathe Out Steph, of the Lilac System

ME AN’ PIP Sydney Trotter

Content Warnings

About the Writers

Acknowledgements

Copyright and Performing Rights Information

Dedicated to the memory ofPrue Skene CBE and Terry O’Leary

Foreword Michael Sheen

The truth is that homelessness isn’t the problem.

Poverty isn’t the problem.

The problem is wealth and power. The problem is political will.

There is enough wealth to sort this out. There are enough resources. They are just in the hands of people who don’t want to do it. That is the unpalatable and uncomfortable truth.

Those with access to the wealth needed or the levers of power required simply do not want to do it.

So – we either have to accept that these issues are fundamentally unsolvable or that the system we currently live under does not allow for them to be solved. Does not want it.

Would prefer to manage the problem rather than solve it.

Many, many good people have spent many, many hours working at trying to address all this, but if the system and those in charge of it do not want it solved then all that work can never do what is ultimately needed.

What to do then?

A major shift clearly needs to happen. In my experience, if something fundamentally needs changing, the best place to start is with the people who are on the front line.

Listening to them and hearing their story.

People who are living the experience rather than people, like me, no matter how well-intentioned, who want to help, want to support, but ultimately aren’t actually experiencing it.

This is why their voices are so vitally important to be heard.

Why their stories matter. And why what you now have in front of you is so necessary.

The voices contained here are the voices of experience. The stories are revelatory.

Whether it’s Charlie Josephine telling us about the perils of flirting when you’ve got no home address or Neetu Singh describing how kitchens can become train stations when you’re made into a refugee in your own country – these stories can suddenly upend everything you thought you knew, change your assumptions, open up a new perspective, shift the narrative.

Art is not for the lucky few, some sort of luxury add-on. Stories are how we live, how we understand, how we connect.

To share our story is a right not a reward.

A national conversation can’t be national, or indeed a conversation, if we only ever hear from the same people.

We want to feel like we’re living not just surviving.

Not just a problem.

Telling our story is an essential part of life. An act of love – not just in the telling but also in the receiving. Perhaps especially in the receiving.

An act of love not charity.

An act of justice.

As Nelson Mandela said,

‘Overcoming poverty is not a gesture of charity. It is an act of justice. It is the protection of a fundamental human right, the right to dignity and a decent life.’

So, what you have in front of you is a book of stories, yes, a chorus of voices but it’s more than that.

It’s a book of love, a book of justice.

And if we are prepared to truly receive it – then, perhaps, a book of change.

Introduction Chris Sonnex

The voices of people who’ve lived through homelessness and poverty need to be heard. Not as a nice add-on, not as a token gesture, but because they are vital. They show us the world as it really is, in all its complexities. And the truth is, society is failing these voices. Culture and politics are dominated by people who can afford to get in, to stay in, to be seen. If you’re working class, if you’ve been through poverty, if you’ve been homeless, the doors are closed before you even reach them. That’s not a small problem; that’s a cultural and societal crisis.

More Than One Story has been about breaking that cycle. First with the award-winning film series, then with this book of monologues. Work made by people with lived experience, work that speaks with authority because it comes from authenticity. The national call-out – and indeed this book are a celebration of voices, and we have to acknowledge the amazing submissions from people that you aren’t reading right now. Let me be clear: we could have published ten more books. The quality, the range, the power of what came in proved something we already knew: the stories are out there, the talent is out there. It’s the structures that have been holding people back.

Outside of that, I think it’s worth noting that every single writer who sent in a monologue got feedback; it took a lot of admin and system-making, but it’s worth it to let artists know that we value them. The feedback and the judging were not just from theatre professionals, but from Cardboard Citizens Members. Members who we trained, supported and paid to be readers. That meant the people judging the work weren’t looking down from above, but reading across, as equals, as peers. That matters.

That is why Cardboard Citizens exists. We’ve been doing this for over thirty years. Creating spaces where people who are ignored, can not only be heard but create art that shifts the ground beneath us. We are not in the business of pity. We are in the business of change. Of culture. Of justice.

I want to stop here and give thanks. To our Members, who are the beating heart of this project and this company. To our associate artists Debbie Hannan, Hamish Pirie and Chantelle Dusette. To the writers who shared their words, their craft, their courage. To the incredible staff and the board of Cardboard Citizens, who hold the work with so much care and commitment, who graft behind the scenes and on the front line to make it all possible. To Nick Hern Books who partnered with us to take these stories further. To our wonderful Ambassadors David, Kate, Malorie, Rory and Roy. To our supporters, including Arts Council England, The Linbury Trust, John Ellerman Foundation, Backstage Trust, our Commissioning Circle founders and all our incredible supporters and friends whose unwavering belief has made Cardboard Citizens what it is today. Without you all, none of this would be possible.

This is not just one story. It is More Than One Story. It is a movement that will keep growing, keep fighting, keep creating. So, take these words in. Sit with them. Let them move you, unsettle you, inspire you. This is culture made by and for the people. This is what change looks like. And it is only the beginning.

About Cardboard Citizens

Cardboard Citizens creates theatre with, for and about people with lived experience of homelessness, poverty or inequity.

We use theatre, art and training to empower individuals to make change in their own lives, and in their communities. We run a Membership programme for people with experience of homelessness, poverty or inequity, offering free workshops, information, advice and guidance, training and qualifications, and creating opportunities for employment in the theatre industry and beyond. We create theatre rooted in issues of homelessness, poverty and the inequity that causes them, working with artists who speak from experience and creating performances in theatres and in hostels, prisons and community venues. Through the stories we tell, we aim to challenge perspectives and inspire positive change in audiences, across the arts sector, and in wider society. Cardboard Citizens was founded by Adrian Jackson MBE in 1991. Productions directed by Jackson included critically acclaimed Cathy, Bystanders, Home Truths and the Evening Standard Award-winning Mincemeat.

Chris Sonnex joined Cardboard Citizens as Artistic Director and Joint CEO in autumn 2021. He is the charity’s first Artistic Director with lived experience of homelessness and since his appointment has spearheaded a broadening out of the organisation’s focus: exploring impactful solutions to challenge the systemic causes of homelessness in the UK today, alongside making concrete commitments to redress the inequality of opportunity in the performing arts industry, which included opening its entire programme out to people experiencing poverty and inequity.

Recent work includes the award-winning short-film series, MoreThan One Story; Bangers by Danusia Samal, directed by Chris Sonnex, and co-produced with Soho Theatre; and Faun by Vinnie Heaven, directed by Debbie Hannan, and co-produced with Theatre503 and Alphabetti Theatre. Cardboard Citizens is supported by Ambassadors David Morrissey, Kate Winslet CBE, Malorie Blackman OBE, Rory Kinnear and Roy Williams OBE FRSL.

www.cardboardcitizens.org.uk@cardboardcitz

Cardboard Citizens Staff

Aliyah Forde Youth Engagement Manager

Bonny Herington Project Manager

Caitlin Fielding Executive Assistant

Chris Sonnex Artistic Director & Joint CEO

Eniola Olubajo Digital Content Officer

Hollie Smith Senior Producer

Jessie Wyld Head of Engagement

Leone Richmond Head of Development

Lisa Briscoe Executive Director & Joint CEO

Lucy Madden Head of Audiences

Rachel Jessica Angeli Membership Manager

Sameera Joseph Engagement Co-ordinator

Associate Artists

Chantelle Dusette

Debbie Hannan

Hamish Pirie

Board of Trustees

Ajeet Jugnauth

Anna Williams Chair

Ayesha Casely-Hayford

Chris Bull Treasurer

Claire Matthews

Jenique McNaught Vice Chair

Matthew Xia Vice Chair

Mete Akkemik

Member Representatives

Gordon Booker Jr

Shahab Awad

Todd Ellis

Our Supporters

We are deeply grateful to our core and project supporters, including those listed below. It is thanks to you that we can plan with confidence and achieve impact year-on-year.

AFME, Canary Wharf Contractors Fund, Capital Group, Coutts Foundation, East End Community Foundation, Ernest Hecht Charitable Foundation, Henry Smith Foundation, M&G, Societe Generale UK Foundation, The Agency, The Albert Hunt Trust, The Clothworkers’ Foundation, The D’Oyly Carte Charitable Trust, The National Lottery Community Fund, The Reed Foundation, and our generous individual, Commissioning Circle and anonymous supporters.

Join Us

Each year, Cardboard Citizens must raise around £1 million to deliver outreach, participation and artistic programmes of work. If you’d like to support Cardboard Citizens, please visit cardboardcitizens.org.uk/get-involved/support-us

The Cardboard Citizens Commissioning Circle

The anthology’s publication marks our deepened commitment to championing artists with lived experience so that more of their stories can reach UK stages. The Commissioning Circle is a new community of changemakers standing with Cardboard Citizens to rewrite the narrative of homelessness in the arts and beyond. To learn more, please visit cardboardcitizens.org.uk/get-involved/support-us/individuals

MORE THAN ONE STORY

An Anthology of Monologues on Homelessness and Poverty

All monologues contain themes ofhomelessness, poverty and inequity.

If you would like to access detailed Content Warnings,you can find them on page 169.

Bring-your-kids-to-work day(every day… and night)

Adil Hassan

AKRAM. What’s home?

I don’t think I had one.

I walked to and from school, looking into the windows of homes of families I wish I was a part of. Curtains drawn open for everyone to see how homely and cosy it was. It was like everyone had a proper home but me.

Every night, I prayed to be in an orphanage: at least I’d get the chance to be on the market, for a nice rich family to adopt me and look after me. Properly.

I remember social services telling my parents they shouldn’t have had us, since they didn’t have the accommodation to… accommodate us. Sounds brash but they were right.

Our parents say they come here, into this country, for a better life for us. How is it better, when it’s five of us in a tinpot one-bed flat?

We got evicted when I was nine. Not by any authority… Other than the authority of nature. Cockroaches and bedbugs were those pesky landlords that kicked us out. Mind you, we lived with that for all nine years of my life before social services clocked it. We were meant to move so many times, to a bigger, more suitable home – just never happened. My parents were just scolded for being bad parents, and shame clung like a shadow, as we scratched the bug bites off our skin till it bled. A map of scars leading to systems built to stitch us up to this fucked fate.

Then Mum and Dad came up with a radical solution.

We would alternate between sleeping at the hotel Dad works at, and the houses Mum worked at as a nanny. Life’s jokes – how are both of your parents’ jobs to do with homes, and you ain’t got one yourself?

So from then on, for a little while, me, my baby bro Isa, little sisters Jaz and Lia, would be split up, so it’s two of us each at Dad’s or Mum’s workplace at a given time. Mad stress for them hiding us from their bosses, so fun for us kids.

Bring-your-kids-to-work day, every day.

Every other day, we were in a different room of the hotel. It was like being in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Narnia, Monsters Inc. We were living a DreamWorks, Pixar, Disney movie. Snacks from vending machines, spinning around on the spinny chair in Dad’s reception, digging into people’s unwanted delivery parcels, it was Christmas every day. Dad was Santa, and we were his little useless elves milling about, frolicking about the hotel. We were treated like emperors and empresses –

Dad’s colleagues, the guests, everyone loved us – obviously we were little chipmunks running around. Treated to the most gourmet shit I’d ever seen: Japanese, Persian, you name it. The first takeaways in our life. Blame Dad for our expensive taste.

Spoiling us with the combination of waste and leftovers from the canteen and guests’ unclaimed takeaway, and yellow-sticker reduced food Dad would hunt for just before he clocked in for his shift. These were the best moments in our lives with Dad.

At ‘home’, back in the old flat, he was like some… dictator. An impatient, grumpy old man that was so unpleasant to live with. He was moving like King Lear.

Now, here at his work, we had the best of him, and none of his worst. He was so gentle, so affectionate… I felt safer and loved him more than I feared him.

He became the cool uncle that let us do whatever and get us whatever we wanted. It was a weird little paradise.

Then we’d rotate.

Go to Mum’s. Mum’s was different. The routine was less stable, more thrilling. Different houses. Yep, we were in HOUSES, MANSIONS: Knightsbridge, St John’s Wood, Chelsea, Hampstead. We called it the ‘forbidden dwellings’ – yeah, Jaz came up with that. Trick was, we had to hide from the owners.

It was really strange. It was like they owned my mum too.

I know it was her job, but she’d be cleaning after them, cooking for them every day. The house was so clean and pristine. Walkin wardrobes big enough to be a flat. A kitchen you can dine in.

We saw how Mum was with these kids: feeding them, cuddling them, laughing with them, reading them bedtime stories.

How could we get that love?

Can money buy that love for us?

That care, for us?

Why do those kids get to have double parents (theirs and mine)?

We were hiding behind the glass, outside looking into a family and a home we could never have. And we were right there, in it.

But it couldn’t be, it was never ours.

We were ghosts in these homes.

When we had that tiny window where Mum was having a break from her duties, the way she’d be with us was so nice. Not like before. Maybe it was the guilt. Either way, she loved us more, gifted us like she never did before. Made sure we were okay and had everything we wanted. She felt freer. We felt like the rich parents’ kids for a bit, and Mum, OUR mum, was our nanny… yeah…

This period of my life. Between these worlds, places where normal people get to properly settle. And us straggler strangers, seeking shelter every night ‘illegally’ really. And nobody else would know, as far as I knew…

Life was a lot better. Like that. Just Mum, or just Dad.

Disjointed. But better that way. We actually were… properly living. Them together, it was just a war of noise and stress. And in that tiny shoebox of a flat? Recipe for pure dysfunction.

Maybe for some of us, our parents are better off not together.

Yeah, we might not have the kind of family, the kind of home we want. But we’d just have it different. Windows and portals into different homes, that was our world.

Perhaps one day we can find our true home. Or… create it.

deserving, undeserving

Allie Bittar

1.

i want my own bedroom with my own bed,

i want a school blazer that fits

not a hand-me-down,

i want my own food

not free school meals,

i want to go on the school trip to Paris,

i want to go to dance class after school

and make new friends,

i want to go on a proper holiday

so i have a proper story to tell my old friends,

i want one Christmas present

that’s a surprise

not an essential,

i want mummy to be happy and to not worry all the time.

i want to stop feeling guilty.

i want space to dream again.

2.

on the razor’s edge of dispossession,

or living month to month,

more money than:

mouldy rooms,

empty fridges,

missing staircases.

all the while

hot shame.

cold shame.

just shame.

but remember to distinguish

the deserving (no fault)

from the undeserving (all fault),

so pocket your pity

and keep your change,

but please –

mend the stairs.

3.

‘beware idlers and shirkers!’

the preacher man’s voice boomed

as i weaved through Woolwich market.

8 eat only the bread you paid for

i starved.

8 toil and labour night and day

to not be a burden to any

i tired.

i starved.

10 if you are not willing to work

you will not eat

i willed.

i tired.

i starved.

14 notice persons who do not obey,

and have nothing to do with him,

that he may be ashamed

there’s that shame again.

did you know the word ‘work’ appears over eight hundred times in the Bible?

i’m reminded God worked six out of seven days.

4.

i tunnelled deeper

and stumbled on a treatise on indigence (1806)

poverty is wealth.

poverty is productivity.

no poverty,

no labour.

no labour,

no riches,

no refinement,

no comfort.

no benefit to those who possess wealth.

conclusion:

poverty is necessary,

indispensable,

civilisation.

result:

work cradle to grave.

i hear the pension age is due to increase again

(we cheer!)

5.

when did you move to the UK?

i moved to the UK when i was eight.

why did you move to the UK when you were eight?

i had to leave my home.

why did you have to leave your home?

…because of the war.

what war?

there was a civil war.

what happened? do you remember?

my…

my grandma was killed.

she was shot.

rebels asked,

‘do you want short sleeve or long sleeve?’

before cutlassing your hand off.

i’m… i’m very sorry to hear that.

so you had to move here?

yes we did.

and what did you think when you moved here?

i thought it would be a dream.

what made you think it would be a dream?

everyone said it would be a better life.

who is everyone?

people when they’d call back home.

and was it a better life?

still not sure. it’s a lot of hard work.

they forget to tell you that bit.

why not sure?

we became asylum seekers.

for how long?

seven years.

and what did that entail?

moving. lots of moving around:

London, Newcastle, Margate, Liverpool, back to London.

did they try to deport you in that time?

three times each with the same banging at five a.m. in the morning:

‘Home Office, open the door!’

what was the impact?

no school. forgotten friends.

welcome to Yarl’s Wood detention centre.

and i guess there was no making it stop?

after the last attempt we ran away to live with a family friend in London.

and how was that?

four of us in her box room stacked in like lost luggage.

it must’ve been hard.

we were grateful.

and did things get easier?

it felt like i was living a double life but war is harder.

double life how?

like i was walking around with my frayed school blazer inside out.

do you have any regrets?

i’ve learnt you can spend so long looking backwards that you end up stumbling forwards.

and what happened afterwards?

we got our citizenship

and i did what my mum told me every day.

what was that?

to remember where i came from

and to focus on school.

and did that help?

in a way. depressed as i was,

i graduated uni

and i’ve got a decent job now.

depressed?

the focus was always to study for security,

not for passion,

and I was having a hard time figuring myself out.

how was your university experience overall?

made me realise how different i was

even from my close friends.

different how?

i’m a first-gen immigrant.

it comes with its own challenges.

what sort of challenges?

everyone else seems settled in financially, even culturally, and i’m on the back foot.

do you ever tell them this?

not really,

but i always think it must be how their grandparents felt when they moved here.

are you happier here?

i count my blessings.

are you satisfied?

not yet…

not until i buy my mum a house.

6.

almost

nothing.

not quite this;

very nearly that.

not anything;

no single thing.

no prospect of progress;

of no value.

not at all.

7.

all around you,

you see us:

broken,

breaking,

mending,

don’t pretend you can’t hear us too.

Crunch

Bobby Brill

YOU: Live in a city hotel.

YOU: Use a wheelchair some or all of the time.

YOU: Are transgender.

YOU: May choose to speak your bracketed inner thoughts.

YOU: May choose to speak italicised stage directions.

A sparse hotel room. The door has two peepholes, one ata lower height, for wheelchair users.

YOU might be using a wheelchair right now, though youprobably aren’t.

YOU. You’re so lucky. That’s what you’re told. You’re lucky you have a ‘priority need’, checking enough incapacity boxes to earn temporary places to stay until, if you stay lucky, there’s a permanent place for you to live.

You’re told you need to practise gratitude.

Your ungrateful arms scream with pain, they feel laden with invisible bags of fresh groceries.

You should unburden the load into a fridge, casting the everyday spell that transforms rustling plastic dead weight into building blocks of nourishment.

But you can’t alchemise burden into hope from this hotel-home.

There isn’t a kitchen.

There is a new gourmet restaurant on the street below.

You booked a seat for the tasting menu, eight courses, before it even opened.

When you had a fridge you couldn’t justify the cost of a gourmet meal.

Now there’s no fridge, so every meal has become an unaffordable luxury.

If you’re falling into debt anyway, the food should be delicious.

At the restaurant, you scrape eight plates clean. You forget each course before the plates do. You don’t forget the pain in your shoulders.

To finish you order an espresso martini. You don’t drink but you wanted to hold the glass as though you weren’t afraid of spasming hands snapping its fragile stem.