The author (playwright) Benjamin Zephaniah

Author of Face the Play

3 facts about Benjamin Zephaniah:

1)Benjamin Zephaniah was born in Birmingham in April, 1958 and he was the son of Caribbean immigrants. He was dyslexic, and left school at 13 because he was not able to read or write

2) Benjamin Zephaniah is a British poet and writer. In 2008, he was voted one of Britain’s top 50 post world war 2 writers, in a poll by the Times newspaper.

3)His poems captured the mood of the early 1980s in Britain, and were often about homelessness or unemployment. He was described as Britain’s most recognizable poet.

Choose a poem and justify why it was chosen: Talking Turkeys

Be nice to yu turkeys dis christmas 
Cos' turkeys just wanna hav fun 
Turkeys are cool, turkeys are wicked 
An every turkey has a Mum. 
Be nice to yu turkeys dis christmas, 
Don't eat it, keep it alive, 
It could be yu mate, an not on your plate 
Say, Yo! Turkey I'm on your side. 
I got lots of friends who are turkeys 
An all of dem fear christmas time, 
Dey wanna enjoy it, dey say humans destroyed it 
An humans are out of dere mind, 
Yeah, I got lots of friends who are turkeys 
Dey all hav a right to a life, 
Not to be caged up an genetically made up 
By any farmer an his wife. 

Turkeys just wanna play reggae 
Turkeys just wanna hip-hop 
Can yu imagine a nice young turkey saying, 
ÒI cannot wait for de chopÓ, 
Turkeys like getting presents, dey wanna watch christmas TV, 
Turkeys hav brains an turkeys feel pain 
In many ways like yu an me. 

I once knew a turkey called........ Turkey 
He said "Benji explain to me please, 
Who put de turkey in christmas 
An what happens to christmas trees?", 
I said "I am not too sure turkey 
But itÕs nothing to do wid Christ Mass 
Humans get greedy an waste more dan need be 
An business men mek loadsa cash'. 

Be nice to yu turkey dis christmas 
Invite dem indoors fe sum greens 
Let dem eat cake an let dem partake 
In a plate of organic grown beans, 
Be nice to yu turkey dis christmas 
An spare dem de cut of de knife, 
Join Turkeys United an dey'll be delighted 
An yu will mek new friends 'FOR LIFE'. 

I chose this poem in particular as it is written in a completely different way to how normal poems are written and it is written as though Benjamin is saying it himself so some of the words are written in the way he say's it like 'Let dem'. As this poem is targeting an audience of young children, Benjamin is trying to tell them that turkeys are like us human beings and they are also living things that shouldn't just be killed because we want to eat them. He also tries to communicate to the children in a way saying that the turkey is like us so they also have a mum and we should treat them as our friends and not food for our plate on Christmas. He also communicates the same message telling the children that turkeys listen to music and watch TV like normal people and the children would think in that way so they would stop eating the turkey. This poem would also influence children to eat less meat and eat more vegetables as these animals are living like us.

How does Benjamin Zephaniah explores themes of race in his work?
Benjamin Zephaniah often explores themes of race in his work and there is a lot of evidence shown of that from what has been read so far in Face the Play. A piece of evidence of themes of race in Face the Play is in Scene 4 when the street voices say, ' Chinese, Vietnamese, Indian, Polish, Latvian, Greek, Somalian, and Turkish'. They also say,' Christian, Muslim, Jew, Sikh and a dozen other faiths, some you've never heard of'. Benjamin explores themes of race to show people that in East London there aren't only English people living there and it is very international with people from all around the world living there. Benjamin is a very international person and has been to many different places and it makes him feel like he belongs there and in his poems he wants to share that by telling people about these different nationalities and religions that exist in the world. He also wanted to write this play because he wanted teenagers to see the real world with all the racism, wars and violence and he wanted to tell them that they should start reading as well. With this play he could teach them about different races as well as relating to them as he wrote about other teenagers and with it they would stop doing the things that were not good for them. There is other evidence of different races in Scene 2 as well where the street voices against say,' Muslim gangs, Chinese gangs and Punjabi lions'. This means that he wants to inform people about the different kinds of gangs but also saying that there are gangs filled with people with the same nationality and religion. He wants to warn people with this as well as spreading the word about these different people.He mainly tries to communicate these races with street voices as they say it together and they can show that there are not only a few different races but many and they are living in the same city as the others.

Additional information about Benjamin Zephaniah:

His poetry is influenced by the street culture of Jamaica.  His first performance was at age 10, and by 15, he was quite well known in and around Birmingham. Benjamin Zephaniah moved to London when he was 22. He published his first book of poetry which sold well. He also made a name writing and reading his poems in clubs and other venues. He was described as Britain’s most recognisable poet. Zephaniah is known for his strong and often controversial beliefs and opinions. He has suggested changing the British voting system, and has publicly turned down an OBE medal. His poetry book for children, Talking Turkeys was a bestseller. He has also written several novels aimed specifically at teenagers, as well as several collections of poetry.In 1991, Zephaniah performed on all 6 continents in just a 3 week period. He has a fan club in the central African country of Malawi, and spends part of his time in Beijing, China. He has produced several records, mostly in a reggae or dub poetry style. Benjamin Zephaniah has been awarded the BBC Young Playwright’s Award. His version of the song Tam Lyn Retold won a best song award in 2008.

Opening of Face the Play

i) What do you know about this play's setting of East London? How would you describe it? 

From the play's setting of East London, I would describe it as a place which is very multi-cultural and has many different kinds of people. As there are many different cultures and nationalities it also makes people there racist and they start acting violently against others. There also many gangs there that control different parts of the city. As there are different nationalities, each nationality has their own gang and they deal with a lot of weapons and drugs. There is also high drug usage in East London and there are many dealers in the area. At the same time with all the corrupt people there are also people who are really modern and have their own business or also young woman and just busy working people. There is a mix of rich and poor in the area as well.

ii) What does East London look like?

East London looks like a very modern place with many different kinds of people from different countries and are either rich or poor. East London has many different streets that are always really busy with many shops for clothes. East London has many poor types of houses and also art galleries which attract very creative people. There also many restaurants and clubs where people go for entertainment. There are many offices which are owned by really rich people. The city is known for fashion and they have many creative people who go to work there and that's the reason there are many different kinds of nationalities as well.

iii) What do you think the purpose of the 'Street Voices' characters is? 

The purpose of the Street Voices characters are to create more of an effect on the audience as the performance would feel more intense as there is more than one person speaking at a time. With there being six street voices the audience would have a clear image of what exactly a person from East London is like as a group of people are doing the same actions as one person and they all also say the same things and do the same things at the same time. With the Street Voices, it also builds up any scene as the audience is completely attracted to the scene when a group of people are speaking at the same time and they are constantly thinking about what would happen next. They would also be focusing on all the people and not only one at a time. When the audience is looking at the street voices doing everything similarly, they would anticipate an event that might happen but in a more exaggerated way as the street voices put more emphasis on everything when they say/ do things at the same time. Sometimes the street voices could be doing different actions but they would still be saying the same thing which would also make the audience think that they are all part of the same group or do something together.

iv) What did your group try to communicate about city life and how? 

 In our group we wanted to show city life in different ways where there are people like business men, street dancers/gang members and also young women who always go around shopping and have a lot of money. We wanted to show that many different activities take place in the city everyday and how crowded and hectic it is to do anything. We showed the city life through the street voices who talk in different ways and they all do different kinds of jobs. Me and Angelo were shown as gang members of the Eastside and we were also street dancers with a British accent. Emilija and Aizah were modern day women who go around the parks and shops in the city. Michael and Ammar were business men who were really busy and didn't have time to stop and were always in a rush. This shows what city life is like and to make it look even more like a city we could have made the people change what they were doing so the audience could see the other jobs as well.

v) What could your group have done better?

 My group could have done a couple of things better to make the performance look much better. Firstly we could have added more background sounds like crowded street noises and cars honking stuck in traffic. This would have made the performance look more realistic and the audience would feel like they are in that city as they can see and hear what it's like. From other groups that we saw, we could have done more actions instead of just coming up to the front of the stage and then saying our lines. We could have been moving around and then the person saying the dialogue could stop and say it. Next time we also need to make sure that when we are saying the lines, we all say it at the same time so that it doesn't sound messed up. We also need to make sure that we don't just stop and do nothing while the other people are talking because the performance will look boring and it won't engage the audience at all. Another thing we could have done was work on our accents to make it sound like we were actually from East London and it showed the different kinds of people and where they are from. The last thing we could improve is to make sure that we use the space on the stage wisely because in our performance we kept colliding into each other which made the performance look bad.

vi) Which other group inspired you with their interpretation and what did they do?

In my opinion all the groups inspired me with their interpretation of the performance as they all were unique in their own way with different actions and events taking place throughout the performance. The first group that performed which was Tye's group had really good dialogue as they all were speaking at the same time properly which meant that they rehearsed and practiced very well and along with it they were doing the actions at the same time which I liked. I also like Mais' group as they had a variety of different actions and people doing many different things in their performance while they were moving around but they weren't able to memorise the lines fully and they were forgetting a few of them in the middle. I also liked Ghassan's group because they had a really good idea where there was a good flow and it was guests going to each other's house and they had kids and it all went together really well. If all these groups were put together for one performance it would be perfect as they all were good in their own way and together it would make a really good performance.