Locked In

On the 20th floor of an abandoned East End tower block, Blaze (a Caribbean MC) and Riqi (a Bengali DJ) rip up the airwaves on a leading pirate station. Their last CD was a massive hit and they're all set to hit the big time with their first live set at Exile FM's birthday bash coming up. Then Zahida comes into their lives and cracks begin to appear in their friendship. When a local gangster asks Blaze for a serious favour, suddenly there's a choice to be made that could split their world wide open
Locked In is a gritty hard-hitting piece written by Fin Kennedy (winner of the 2006 Arts Council's John Whiting award). Developed in direct contact with young people, it portrays a diverse cross-cultural inner-city life and characters, underscored by a contemporary hip hop soundtrack.

Locked In is the name of the play we went to see last night, it only has 3 cast members and one of them is the boyfriend of a close friend. As I said yesterday we were a bit apprehensive but it was excellent; really entertaining but with a really strong and important message. The actors predominantly rap throughout the play and also dance as a way of expressing certain situations, the whole production was very clever. It confronts gun and knife crime and the way that relgion affects the way we live our lives and the choices we make. The production also goes into schools and you can see how the music and the style of acting makes it really accessible to younger people. Our friend's boyfriend was amazing as well, I felt bad for ever doubting him. He acted the part so, so well. He was rapping and body popping and had really good timing and then there is an extremely emotional scene towards the end and he was brilliant! After the play they had a question and answer session with the cast and the stage manager; they put a number up on stage which you could text your question to. I thought this was such a good idea as people do not want to ask in front of everyone else but loads of people texted questions and it was all very interesting. It really made me want to go to the theatre more; it didn't really cost much and it was really good plus it really made you think afterwards which is always a good thing isn't it?