AUSTERITY

Commissioned by The Play’s The Thing theatre company (Director, Rosemary Hill) this Austerity was performed with a mixed professional and local community cast in partnership with Milton Keynes library.

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Austerity is a provocative and site-specific theatrical work that confronts the parallels and tensions between two eras of British austerity. Set in the immediate post-war period (1945–51), the play explores a time when the newly elected Labour government created The Festival of Britain whilst at the same time imposed severe economic constraints on a nation recovering from conflict. In that age, austerity was framed as a necessary response to material scarcity; despite hardship, there remained a sense of collective purpose and hopeful reconstruction.

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By contrast, in the era from 2010 onward, austerity has often been wielded as an ideological instrument—used to justify cuts to welfare, demonise the poor, and reshape public services. Austerity invites audiences to reflect on how societies define fairness, responsibility, and national identity—asking us to compare who we say we are with who we actually are, and how those identities evolve under pressure.

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The play employs Brechtian techniques to provoke critical distance even as it engages the audience emotionally via its politically charged themes. A distinctive element was the integration of a “Community Chorus,” meaning that local participants join core professional cast members in a hybrid ensemble—blurring the boundary between spectators and storytellers.

 

After the performance, each show included a Q & A session, giving audiences a chance to share perspectives, debate, and consider real-world parallels.