Output details

Greed Fear Hunger Waste: A Play Cycle

The text is unpublished, so the submitted portfolio consists of transcripts of the finished plays as they were performed and broadcast on BBC Radio 4. Following discussions with BBC Radio 4 Commissioners around the time of the 2008 financial crash, Britton began work on a rapid-response play which would link the global crisis, City of London banking and the first set of crisis victims – working class communities in America’s Rust-Belt. With research help from journalists in the BBC’s finance unit, Britton created “When Greed Becomes Fear”, broadcast in the New Year, which became the first drama response to the crisis in any medium. It became clear to Britton that the idea of Greed and its outcomes required a more sustained approach. He also recognised that along with BBC staff collaborators, he was developing a style template which had further possibilities. This first play created much public and media interest (the Telegraph said that its analysis of what was going on was clearer than conventional current affairs reportage) and Britton was commissioned to write a second play to focus on the UK housing market collapse, again with research guidance from the BBC’s finance unit. Britton then moved on to the third work in the cycle, dealing with the side effects of consumerism: waste products and environmental terrorism, helped this time by the BBC’s local government editor. It became clear that to complete the cycle Britton should apply the techniques to a forward-looking scenario, and he began to investigate what might happen if the Greed scenario which had led to the first play was applied to a vital commodity, for example the world food supply. The final two-part play, “When Greed Becomes Hunger”, created with research guidance from the BBC’s agricultural editor and broadcast in 2013, examined what might happen globally and locally if the market–led greed which caused the crash of 2007/8 was mirrored in the food commodities market the in the near future.