Book description
"You see, what this country needs is a strong government to sort
out the laws, bring order" Election night 1979: the sus laws had
made it legal for police to stop and search anyone - purely on
suspicion. Two detectives on the graveyard shift in an East London
police station place bets on which party will win. A black man is picked
up, accused of his wife's murder. He is incensed, believing that he'll
be fodder for an incoming government keen to flex its law-and-order
muscles. A powerful, politicised cry against the still-current threat of
institutional racism, Keeffe uncompromisingly depicts a corrupt world
which looks all too familiar today. Set on the eve of the Thatcher
victory, this new edition of Keeffe's classic, harrowing play coincides
with the general election of 2010, and asks what's changed. Sus is a
shocking and disturbing drama which protests against the rise of the
right-wing, the infringement of civil liberties and the casual
humiliation which the police inflict on their prisoners. Exploring the
abuse of power and racism, Sus is a resonant, socially charged and
powerful play, as relevant today as it was in 1979. Barrie Keeffe is a
well-known English dramatist and writer, whose theatre plays include
Only a Game, Gotcha, Abide with Me, My Girl, Bastard Angel, Sus, Frozen
Assets, A Mad World My Masters, She's so Modern, Better Times, Not Fade
Away, King of England, Wild Justice and two trilogies: Gimme Shelter and
Barbarians. His screenplays, TV and radio plays include: The Long Good
Friday, The Killing of Joelito, Dead Meet, The Substitute, Gotcha,
Cricket, Hanging Around, Nipper, and Uncle Jack, Self Portrait, Paradise
and Anything Known? He has won the Prix Revelation, Paris Critics for
Gotcha, the Giles Cooper Best Radio Award for Heaven Scent, the Thames
TV Playwright's Award for Only a Game and the Mystery Writers of America
Edgar Allan Poe Award for his screenplay The Long Good Friday. He has
been resident writer at the Royal Shakespeare Company, The Shaw Theatre
and the Soho Poly Theatre and Associate Writer at the Theatre Royal
Stratford East. He was a United Nations Ambassador in 1995, their 50th
anniversary year. He was a Judith E Wilson Fellow at Christ's College
Cambridge, 2003-4 and has taught dramatic writing at City University
since 2002.
