Andrea Dunbar's life was ordinary as a working class woman she struggled everyday, she grew up on a council estate in Bradford had little in the way of formal education, worked in the Mill and Factories of Bradford she became a mother at a young age, she lived in struggle and died too early in shame. However Andrea was also extraordinary she had ability to see us- as working class people as we are - in struggle, in pain, in poverty, but also with laughter and joy, comedy and fight. The Royal Court Theatre in London are are running Andrea's play Rita, Sue and Bob Too during January 2018. On 27th January the play will finish. The Royal Court that initially supported Andrea Dunbar's work but cancelled this run because of the context and narrative and the unpalatable realities of working class women's lives. I don't think the sensibilities of the middle class theatre goers could handle this in 2018. The Royal Court elites also underestimated the respect and love we have for Andrea, and Rita and Sue. On the last day of the play let us meet and celebrate the life and the work of Andrea Dunbar, but also let us rage against the diminishing, and disappearance voice of working class voices in the arts, media, politics and academia and infact all public life. Let us celebrate and remind those whose voices are most dominant that our voices are important, articulate, clever and funny. The only shame here is on those who constantly and shamelessly reproduce class inequality.
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