While the characters themselves do not have smartphones (that, as Tempest also pointed out to me, would be impossible were she to write the play in 2018, when our interview takes place), the screen itself seems to comment on the ever-presence of the screen in contemporary life, and invites questions about how the experience of millennial youth is mediated via the screens.

Another interesting aspect of a production to ‘read’ in multiple ways is its casting. In the play text, Wasted’s characters are specified only by their names and ages (never specifically indicated, but suggested through the dialogue). They have no other defining features, aside from the London dialect they speak in. In the first production of Wasted all the actors were Caucasian (white). This affects how we might understand the play’s politics, particularly in terms of its engagement with hip hop, which is a black cultural movement that emerged on the streets of New York. What does it mean for white actors to channel this history in a culturally elite space like the theatre? And how might the play’s politics appear different if we cast actors of different races in the roles? Would this change the meaning? We can ask the same questions about gender – what if Charlotte, Ted or Danny were played by an openly transgender actor, for example? Does this, or could this, layer the play with alternative readings? These questions do not have definitive answers, but I offer them to encourage you to think about how performances work not only through what is written on the page, but through what appears on the stage – where, how and at what point in history.

Further Exploration

Works by Kate Tempest

Broken Herd, CD box set, Moresounds Lab (2009).

Best Intentions, EP with Sound of Rum, Bratwell Recordings (2009).

Patterns, self published poetry booklet (2010).

Balance, album with Sound of Rum, Sunday Best Recordings (2011).

Everything Speaks in its Own Way, poetry zine (London: Zingaro, 2012).

Brand New Ancients, epic performance poem (London: Picador, 2013).

Everybody Down, album, Big Dada (2014).

Hold Your Own, poetry collection (London: Picador, 2014).

Hopelessly Devoted, play (London: Methuen Drama, 2015).

The Bricks that Built the Houses, novel (London: Bloomsbury, 2016).

Let Them Eat Chaos, album (Kate Calvert Records, 2016).

Running Upon the Wires, poetry collection (London: Picador, 2018).

On Kate Tempest

Beswick, Katie. ‘Build a Fortress’, Loud and Quiet, 30 September 2015, https://www.loudandquiet.com/interview/kate-tempest/ [accessed 11 February 2019].

Lynskey, Dorian. ‘Kate Tempest: “I engage with all of myself, which is why it’s dangerous’ ”, Guardian, 30 April 2017, https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2017/apr/30/kate-tempest-i-engage-with-all-of-myself [accessed February 2019].

McConnel, Jill. ‘ “We are still mythical”: Kate Tempest’s Brand New Ancients’, Arion 22, no. 1 (2014): 195–206.

On hip hop

Forman, Murray. The ’Hood Comes First: Race, Space and Place in Rap and Hip Hop (Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 2002).

Hancox, Dan. Inner City Pressure: The Story of Grime (London: William Collins, 2018).

Kitwana, Bakari. Why White Kids Love Hip Hop: Wankstas, Wiggers, Wannabes, and the New Reality of Race in America (New York: Basic Civitas, 2005).