The idea behind the Cap-a-Pie production of The Translator at Slung Low the pay-what’s-right-for-you theatre in South Leeds is laudable. Take a piece of academic research and present it in a dramatic form so that you can reach a wider audience. How great it would be if you were also able to use that to highlight a social issue and I presume create some form of change.
In this case the academic research was conducted by Dr Lou Harvey of Leeds University. She investigated the experiences of people living and working in the United Kingdom who speak English as a second language.
This is timely and important research. So many aspects of the economy of the United Kingdom from agriculture to the National Health Service are dependent on migrant workers from countries where English is a second language. We simply need immigrants if we want our economy to grow, and yet we have so much more to learn about how to welcome these people and treat them well whilst they are here.
The Translator is a work in development, so much so that the title seems to have changed. The publicity leaflet, which after the performance I am told was written in a bit of a rush calls the play the Translator, but on the evening, it is called Translation. This is a better title. It is a change which just demonstrates how much of a developmental piece I am seeing.
Before curtain-up the actors mingle with the audience initiating conversations and then explaining that they do not understand our responses. It’s an uncomfortable experience having not being able to communicate with someone who wants to communicate with you. Unfortunately, this aspect of being the English speaker is not explored in the drama. The focus is on the issues that not being able to speak English creates. Some of it is done with well-constructed humour. I will as a result always remember to check the language skills of anyone I play charades with in future. I am sure that there were more times like this but my overriding memory is of the actors insulting each other and then encouraging the audience to shout f-word laden abuse at an actor playing an immigrant. It’s more embarrassing than entertaining.
We have always known that immigrants of all kinds encounter abuse and discrimination in the UK, and reports from organisations like the TUC have highlighted how this abuse worsen after the vote to leave the European Union. Fortunately some of these cases are reaching the courts. But I cannot see how this drama adds to the discussion of this issue.
It is evident from the post-performance discussion with the researcher and production team that the members of the audience who are EU migrant workers are elated by what they have seen, after all they have seen their experiences portrayed on stage. But, as someone who has been an expat and has experienced racism and discrimination, I am not seeing what they are seeing.
It must be an enormously powerful experience to see your life portrayed on stage or in a film, but I am just thinking so what!
I want Translation to be a catalyst of understanding but the play let structure whilst interesting does not facilitate the develop of either a story or characters. Unfortunately, if there are no characters there is no one to build a relationship with, no one to care about.
The f-word laden script fails on several levels. It is lazy. I wish writers could use more imagination rather than resorting to this lowest of linguistic formats. Although the f-word may have been the word that people told the researcher they often heard, in reality isn’t it also the one word that is understood by everyone regardless of their ability to speak English? Whilst I stopped being shocked by the f-word a long time ago, in this context using it distracts the drama to a much darker form of racism that does not assist in explaining the issues around translation.
I wish that this drama had worked for me in the same way that it obviously worked for the people in the audience who were born outside the UK and speak English as a second language. There is no reason why it shouldn’t have. I have lived and worked in countries where I not only did not speak the local language but where I stood out because I looked different to local population.
I so wanted the presentation of academic research in a drama to work, and in one sense it did. It portrayed the findings of the research. In doing that it spoke fluently to the converted, the people who have lived the issues portrayed on the stage, but I would have liked the writers to explore why these people have had that experience. After centuries of migration, the United Kingdom is an extremely diverse nation, yet in the 21st Century new comers can still report these sorts of experiences. As someone who was born in the UK, Translation does not challenge me as a critical friend to examine why my fellow Britons behave in this way? Or what might be done to reduce the number of people who have these negative experiences.
Translation is a work in development, I hope that the producers find a way to turn the experiences that initiated their work into a force for change.
English Lessons for people who speak English as a second language are available in Leeds from
During the day Michael Millward is a human resources professional.