Evening Standard interviews Edward Hall

Britain risks recreating the divisions of 1968 and Enoch Powell’s notorious “rivers of blood” speech, says Hampstead Theatre’s artistic director Edward Hall ahead of a new play about an immigrant family. 

Filthy Business, by Ryan Craig, is a semi-autobiographical story about three generations of an East End Jewish family who run a rubber shop supplying everyone from furniture-makers to builders. 

Set between 1968 and 1982, the play follows matriarch Yetta Solomon, played by Sara Kestelman, who tries to hold her business and family together in the face of changing mores and economic upheaval. 

Hall, who is married to actress Issy van Randwyck, said the drama examined immigration and assimilation and asks the question: “Who has the right to be British?” He told the Standard: “What drew me to the play is it’s a big, brutal family drama and it’s very funny. It’s not only about the Jewish experience but the much wider British experience and taps into the current discussion of what is Britishness?'

“My wife is Dutch and, on the brink of triggering Article 50, the question of who has the right to be British and the right to be here is very close to home.” 

The play’s three acts are each set in a different year — 1968, 1972 and 1982.

To read the full interview please click here to visit the Evening Standard online. 

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