Class

Scottee

• Publisher: Salamander Street Ltd.
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781913630041
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Social Classes & Economic Disparity
• Index: Social Sciences

Award-winning artist, writer and broadcaster Scottee grew up around mould, mice and second-hand clothes. After a chance meeting with some posh kids, his mum teaching him to talk proper and him successfully persuading his parents to take him off free school meals Scottee knew he didn't want to be common.In Class, Scottee uncovers what it is to be embarrassed about where you're from, how you can pretend to be richer than you are and explores why we all get a thrill from watching how the other half live.This is a book for the middle class, those who didn't grow up in poverty.'This work is essential. For you and the world.' Sofie Hagen'Class is hard to watch, it's gruelling, it sticks to you, you can feel it after it is gone. But, so is growing up poor and the experience of poverty. Scottee has made something that doesn't let you off the hook, and nor should it.' Travis Alabanza

PRE-SHOW

At the top of the show audience members are given a green token similar to those they get in Waitrose. They are used to put their token in one of two Perspex boxes.

The question on the boxes reads…

Working Class communities need?

Money OR Love

These are counted / weighed once the house is up – SCOTTEE will refer to them later in the show

THE WARM UP

(A large 90’s TV flickers on a cream carpet, a backdrop of net curtains and a photo album are also onstage, SCOTTEE enters and approaches the TV. SCOTTEE is wearing a red tracksuit, gold earrings, necklaces and rings and a pair of new, white trainers.)

‘Ladies, Gentlemen and those of us beyond gender – please welcome to the stage… Scottee’

(SCOTTEE repeats ‘YEAHH!’ at the audience, SCOTTEE as per isn’t happy with the audience response…)

SCOTTEE: No. I think if this is going to work you need to stop acting like middle-class dickheads – maybe we could have some cheering, some whoops – you know what I mean? OK…

(SCOTTEE resets the stage…)

‘Good evening Ladies, Gentlemen and those of us beyond gender – please welcome to the stage… Scottee’

(SCOTTEE repeats ‘YEAHH!’ is repeated at the audience…)

Hello! Welcome, Welcome to my show, with me in it!

My name is Scottee and this is how I fucking talk…

(SCOTTEE’s mock cockney accent drops…)

Acutally it’s not, this is how I talk – and there won’t be any subtitles, this is the sound a big fat council Mary makes OK? So if you don’t understand me just fucking make it up. OK…

–

(Audience call and response…)

Hiya

Allo

Alright?

Watcha

Evening

(Repeats.)

Right, join in with this one please

Here we go, here we go, here we go, here we go, here we go, here we goooooo

(Response.)

Right, testing ya now…

Oggy oggy oggy…? (Waits for response.)

Oh wut, oh wut…? (Waits for response.)

Nice to see ya, to see ya…? (Waits for response.)

What do points make…? (Waits for response.)

Come on, come on, come on, come on…… (Waits for response.)

….look at all the posh ones now shitting themselves I’m gonna make em’ sing along to the peadophile.

Here’s another one… Who ate all the pies, who ate all the pies….? (Waits for response.)

Oh I didn’t think you’d actually do that one.

OK next one – bit niche – let’s see who’ll get it…

Do you really like it? Is it is it wicked? (Waits for response.)

(Towards posh audience member.) Lovely, we’re getting warm now ain’t we?

That was the various, very traditional ways, that we, the ubiquitous working class, this one body, one mass of people like to say hello to each other – every day.

Now little piece of working-class fact for you is that every time you walk past someone else from what you call a lower socio-economic background and you yourself are from a lower socio-economic background, if you see someone from a lower socio-economic background, the traditional greeting on meeting each other’s lower socio-economic background is you MUST, absolutely must recite everything I just said in the past three minutes.

This means getting round the Aldi can be quite difficult – it means getting anywhere is difficult actually, that’s why we’re often late for work, so get fired and as a result the reason why we’re all on the benefits …and subsequently Channel 4 must make a pseudo-documentary about us.

(Wait for response.)

Good, just seventeen more hours of this shit to go before you are free to grab a glass of Rosé and tell each what good people you are for coming to see this show by someone you probably wouldn’t invite to a dinner party.

Right, lovely, so before we get started I want to guess how many people in this room are working class?

(Assess the audience.)

I’m gonna guess by scanning the room with my mind’s eye.

OK I’m gonna say… Tough one tonight.

OK I can tell you there are no working-class people in this room.

Why? How do I know? Cause it’s a theatre, it’s the arts – it’s not allowed. Creativity in this country is a pastime solely reserved and fortressed for and by the white middle classes.

It’s for those of you who think not having a telly makes you more cultured, those of you how have the luxury of being culturally superior cause buildings like this, festivals like this exist, they are made with you in mind.

Lovely, so, in all seriousness I wanna this a bit more scientific about this… let’s try this again…

In a minute I’m gonna ask you to make some noise if you are middle class – now if you are sat there in a COS blouse thinking to yourself – well how do you define class, Scottee?

Well chances are you’re a posh cunt so shut your mouth and stop asking stupid fucking questions…

Also some of you who will be identifying as poor and what you mean by that is you live in a house share in a trendy part of town, without masses of disposable income but enough you buy your moisturizer from Aesop – class isn’t just about economics…

Also, also, also… I don’t want you to divorce yourself from privilege with the tag line ‘well, I’m from a working-class background’ – your parents’ upbringing was not your own…

–

Right, with all that in mind, if you are middle class and / or posh make some noise…

–

Sorry, you’re telling me as I look out to a room full of arts worker haircuts with avant-garde bits of wood round your neck – that you call jewelry *that* sound denotes the middle class?!

You know, you know what I love about this part is the absolute shame and anguish in that sound. The reluctance the most traumatic thing to happen to some people was their parents separated and someone had to move to Surrey.

OK, so...

Table of contents

• Front Cover
• Copyright Page
• Title Page
• Contents
• Foreword
• Introduction
• Director’s Note
• Pre-Show
• The Warm Up