LS2: Arts

REVIEW- Counted

The voice of the excluded masses questions democracy in this refreshing production

Standing in contrast to many of the literary productions that are brought to the stage by the West Yorkshire Playhouse, Counted?, the love child of theatre documentary  company Look Left Look Right and Leeds University professor Steve Bottoms, is a refreshing documentary style drama made to coincide with the events of the recent election. Appealing to a local audience, it uses recent interviews with a range of people from West Yorkshire to explore democracy and politics, asking whether it affects the very people it claims to represent.

            Led by an academic, the audience were taken through the different locations in Yorkshire in an attempt to piece together the causes of voter apathy and the relevance of politics. It took a while to really hit on anything particularly juicy, with the opening sketch featuring three young working class women proving to be clichéd and repetitive, telling us something that the media has told us on countless occasions- that many members of the population feel removed and isolated from the powers that be.

            Subsequent scenes proved to… Continue reading...