a ROLE to PLAY brings together the lived experiences and dreams of Bolsover residents, one of the most deprived towns in the middle of England. Working with Bolsover Freedom Community Project food bank users, volunteers, adult reading group members, and former Bolsover MP (1970-2019) Dennis Skinner, the film tells stories of the impact of economic changes in post-industrial Bolsover, a Derbyshire constituency where coal was once king.
The film experiments with methods of co-creation, radical documentary theatre and oral testimony, with project participants storytelling privileged over the questioning/answering scenario of traditional documentary. The title echoes the participatory film process, and also the roles everyone takes in their working and non-working lives.
Made in direct response to the increasing numbers of unemployment and zero hour contracts across the UK, the film explores the realities and struggles that some residents of Bolsover have encountered in gaining and sustaining employment amidst the town’s post-mining legacy of deindustrialisation. Themes include positive/negative work experiences, volunteering, lack of work, zero-hours contracts, unemployment, and the barrier that low reading and writing skills can have on work.
'Throughout the making, I was thinking about the national and the local, the effect of national politics on the local. What does it mean, actually on the ground, for people in their everyday lives? The inclusion of Dennis Skinner became the link between the national and the local.' —Esther Johnson
We hear the lived experiences and dreams of town residents including:
Stephen Cotton
Stephen's engagement with the Freedom Community Project began as a client of the food bank; going on to volunteer and then secure a job there.
'Jobs have come and gone. I’ve just got on with it. One job, I had to sort trays out of millions of screws. All day just doing that. That was the most boring job. But the hardest thing is getting the job in the first place.'
Adrian Drury
Adrian is a freelance tattooist and zero-hour contract worker. He also plays electric guitar and has been in several bands.
'I’ve been a spray painter, a gardener, a tattooist, a slaughterhouse man, and a warehouse assistant. There are jobs but conditions are poor. Twelve hour shifts, four on, four off, then nothing.'
Jeanette Haigh
Jeanette is a retired primary school teacher who runs Freedom Community Project’s weekly Bolsover reading group.
'Some things are in you from the start aren't they? I’ve always had a love of books. They’re old friends. And I loved reading and wanted to teach kids to read. I met Bernard at the library. We were friends for two years before we went to a Communist dance in Bingley. I mean, I’m a raving Socialist but the Communists were rubbish dancers. However, the food was good.'
Serena Hammond
Serena is a performing arts student who has been a carer for her mother Linda, a member of Bolsover reading group, since she was a teenager.
'I’d been a carer for my mum since the age of 14. But I had helped her before then.'
Dennis Skinner
Dennis is a trade unionist and ex-miner, and was MP for Bolsover from 1970–2019.
'1970. I got elected, and six o’clock the day after I went to work. I didn’t have two ha’pennies to rub together. I hadn’t got a bank account. I hadn’t got a car. I went to work because I didn’t know when I was going to get paid in Parliament. Nobody sent me a letter saying turn up on such and such a day. I just had to keep looking in the papers to see when swearing in started. So I kept going to the pit.'
