Lockwood, Jon

Leon Fleming's new play concerns a brother and sister growing-up and living in Birmingham trapped in the clutches of an uncaring welfare system. The story is told with flasback scences from their childhood, mixed with the contemporary tale of two people being processed by The System TM and trying to survive. It is a grim tale, but not without moments of comedy, but those bittersweet moments come from the past rather than the relentlessly grim present of our protagonists. Their lives now…

There is a recurring theme, common to many if not all public meetings I attend: everyone is assumed to have good hearing.

In reality, there are more than 10 million people in the UK with some form of hearing loss – one-in-six of the population – including more than 70 per cent of over-70-year-olds and 40 per cent of over-50-year-olds.

More than 800,000 people in the UK are severely or profoundly deaf. So, many people aren’t going to clearly hear what is said, and,…

I knew this book was going to be worth reading when the introduction began by quoting this intercept from a police radio report: ‘The clowns are organising. They are organising. Over and out.’

Aimed at activists – particularly those jaded at the prospect of another boring protest, just like the last one, or disheartened at the prospect of handing out leaflets on a Saturday afternoon to busy shoppers – it suggests that we blend art and politics to make activism more ‘compelling and…