Protest Song review – grief, rage and a singalong in Occupy movement drama

‘Got any change?” asks a man with a woolly hat and a can of beer. He appears on the side of the stage with the look of a genuine rough sleeper seeking succour from the cold outside. He waits for an answer and it is harder to look at our feet or tell him we haven’t anything to give him when he’s standing in this intimate space.

It is a compelling beginning and an apt moment to revive Tim Price’s drama of homelessness, given the approach of winter and its rise of fatalities among rough sleepers.

Danny (David Nellist) has been sleeping on the streets for seven years and is in the Square Mile when the Occupy protest movement of 2011 pitch their tents around his spot by St Paul’s Cathedral. He is at first incensed by the invasion, then curious and, finally, drawn into their world, serving food, speaking at their general assembly and finding community and connection. A drama inspired by real events, it explores the encounter between someone who is permanently homeless and those who elect to be on the streets for a certain period of time.

Under the direction of Sarah Bedi, the play’s many tonal gear changes are not quite navigated smoothly enough in the performance here. There is a lot of shouting and anger but not enough space for vulnerability. A satirically reworked version of The 12 Days of Christmas becomes a singalong with audience participation and interrupts the intrigue growing between Danny and the Occupy activists.

Danny seems torn between unexpressed grief for his old life as a father, and a self-sabotaging rage – fuelled by alcohol – for where life has brought him. Brief but revelatory descriptions of begging suggest he has learned to reflect the mood of those passing by. His relationship to the activists is brought alive well, too, but the overtly political points he makes sound like a playwright speaking his play’s issues out aloud. As an hourlong production, it does not feel dangerous or dramatically developed enough to land the final gut-punch.