LITTLE PLATOONS

About

The Schools Season at the Bush

In response to one of the most urgent and divisive issues of our times, the Bush presents The Schools Season: The Knowledge by John Donnelly and Little Platoons by Steve Waters. The season will bring together an ensemble company of ten actors and a series of talks, debates and events which will examine education in Britain today. NB: These two productions will run in rep with each other. Please check here for times and dates for The Knowledge and here for the full programme of education events.

Little Platoons

You can call it liberalism. You can call it empowerment. You can call it freedom. You can call it responsibility. I call it the Big Society.
David Cameron

A group of West London parents are driven by desperation to take the new government up on their offer and start their own ‘free school’. They want to create an education that their children will enjoy rather than endure. But as they find their lives given over to a disturbing version of the Big Society, their fervour turns to panic.

Free schools are getting ready to transform from policy idea to classroom reality. But what do we know about them?
This dark new comedy takes the pulse of Coalition Britain, by exploring what the retreat of the state and the growth of people power might actually mean. Moving from satiric comedy to poignant family drama, it asks why we’re all so obsessed with education and what happens when we get what we wish for.

Steve Waters’ previous work for the Bush Theatre includes The Contingency Plan (On the Beach and Resilience) which was shortlisted for 2009 John Whiting Award).