Richard Bean speaks about his new play England People Very Nice
Playwright Richard Bean speaks about the inspiration behind his funny and provocative new play.
I spent some sleepless nights in the four years I lived in Bethnal Green. An immigrant to London myself, a Yorkshireman, I found the borough abrasive at best and violent at worst, with undisguised racism and tribalism on all sides.
Bethnal Green’s narrative is immigration. This play begins with the French Huguenots, refugees from religious persecution by Catholic France. Not allowed in the City walls, they established their trades in E2 and in three generations were English.
How to describe the Irish that followed – refugees or economic migrants? Persecuted and starving, many Irish found a home and work in Bethnal Green and quickly became cockneys.
The Jews followed, refugees definitely, driven out by the pogroms of Eastern Europe and Russia. They transformed the borough totally, and with pressure from the extant Anglo-Jewry found a way to be both Jewish and English.
The Sylheti (Bangladeshi) population followed their menfolk, the Indian lascars who served in the British Merchant Navy during the war. They have not been established for three generations and their project is unfinished, but the current issue of their process of integration, or lack of it, resonates with the experience of the French, the Irish and the Jews.
England People Very Nice is a play about immigration, integration, terrorism, housing, racism, religion, power, hatred and love – in fact, all the staples for a comedy with songs.
